Harry Potter Film Casts New Records for Biggest Domestic

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 — broke records for top midnight grosses, largest opening day, largest opening weekend in the U.S. and largest global opening weekend, Box Office Mojo reports.

Harry Potter grossed an estimated $168.6 million in its first three days — beating previous record holder The Dark Knight ($158.4 million). The film also grossed $436 million worldwide in its debut — far surpassing previous record holder Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($394 million). The boy wizard franchise is now on track to eclipsing Star Wars as the top-grossing franchise of all time.

Harry Potter stands at $2.177 billion and Star Wars holds the record with $2.218 billion.Transformers becomes highest-grossing film of 2011.Coming in at No. 2 for the week, Transformers: Dark of the Moon took in $21.5 million and became the first film of 2011 to reach $300 million in the U.S. Horrible Bosses ranked third with $17.6 million. Zookeeper followed in fourth place with $12.3 million, and Cars 2 completed the top five with $8.3 million (bringing its total to $165.3 million).

Rounding out the top 10: Larry Crowne (No. 8, $2.6 million), Super 8 (No. 9, $1.92 million, for a total of $122.2 million) and Midnight in Paris (No. 10, $1.89 million). Midnight in Paris has grossed $41.8 million and is now Woody Allen's top-grossing film of all time, moving past 1986's Hannah and Her Sisters' $40 million haul.