Harry's Goblet Fires Up Box Office

Harry's Goblet Fires Up Box Office
Sunday November 20 7:11 PM ET

Harry Potter's new Goblet overfloweth.

Conjuring up a franchise-best $101.4 million from Friday through Sunday, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ended Hollywood's long-running slump and recorded the fourth-best opening of all time, according to the ticket counters at Exhibitor Relations.

This time out, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) cope with danger, hormones and the torturous TriWizard tournament, as well as yet another professor of the dark arts, Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson and the pushy tabloid hack Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson).

Despite a PG-13 rating for scary content, which includes the usual assortment of scary creatures along with a character's death and the first cinematic appearance of Lord Voldemort (spookily essayed by a noseless barely recognizable Ralph Fiennes), the fourth installment in the Potter saga accounted for nearly 60 percent of the weekend ticket sales. The film opened in 3,858 sites, where it averaged a magical $26,290 per screen.

"As the audience has gotten older in time, faithful readers of the Potter books will remain faithful to the movies," Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman told the Associated Press, adding that the opening exceeded the studio's expectations.

Goblet grossed $39.3 million Friday, $35.4 million Saturday and an estimated $26.6 million Sunday. Its three-day total exceeded the previous Potters: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban opened with $93.6 million in 2004; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets grossed $88.3 million in 2002; and the first adaptation in J.K. Rowling's series of Hogwarts tales, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone scored $90.2 million in 2001.

When the smoke settles and final tallies are released Monday, the new film will rank behind only Spider-Man (which spun up $114.8 million in May 2002), Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith ($108.4 million last May) and Shrek 2 ($108 million in summer 2004).

Worldwide, Goblet gobbled up $181.4 million in 19 foreign countries, with England, not surprisingly, contributing the highest portion of the overseas money--$24.6 million.

The Potter-powered box office pushed the take of the top 12 films to $171 million, almost 20 percent higher than this weekend last year, when National Treasure was the top attraction.

From Yahoo! Movies.