Video: Magic opening for Harry Potter film

The boy wizard has vanquished the dark knight and a band of pirates with a record-setting magic act at both the domestic and international box office. See what cinemagoers at Sheffield’s Cineworld made of the premiere.

By The Newsroom

Published 18th Jul 2011, 11:05 BST

Warner Bros estimates that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 took in $168.6m (£112.4m) domestically from Friday to today. That beats the previous best opening weekend of $158.4m, also held by Warner Bros for 2008’s Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight.

Overseas, the film added $307m in 59 countries since it began rolling out on Wednesday, topping the previous best international debut of $260.4m set in May by Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

International results for Deathly Hallows: Part 2 included record openings in Great Britain at $36.6m and Australia at $26.7m.

Worldwide, Deathly Hallows: Part 2 topped $475m in a matter of days, putting it on course to become the franchise’s first billion-dollar worldwide hit. Dan Fellman, of Warner Bros, said: “A billion dollars is definitely going to happen.”