The Boy Who Lived had a magical weekend at the multiplex. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 charmed its way to a massive—and I mean massive—$168.6 million take over the three-day run, hexing any and all adversaries that would dare challenge it. If some geeky blogger with a calculator took this week’s pics No.’s 2 through 9, added them up and doubled them, their gross still wouldn’t equal Potter’s mammoth purse: the second Deathly Hallows would still beat ’em all by about $10 million.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon slipped to second but still cleared $21.3 million. Horrible Bosses finished third with $17.6 million. And let’s shed a sympathetic tear or two for Winnie the Pooh, a bear of very little box office. The charming G-rated feature mustered just $8 million, it’s gentle, honey-soaked goodness overwhelmed by Harry Potter’s CGI magic. Really, the only challenger to the Deathly Hallows was history itself. And even in that rarified stratosphere, Harry did OK.
The second Deathly Hallows’ three-day take sets a new mark for weekend earnings, trumping the previous mark of $158.4 million set by The Dark Knight way back in 2008. Oh, and it earned $307 million overseas, as well—also a new record. In the space of 72 hours, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 earned nearly a half billion dollars. Congress may soon ask its makers for a little spending cash.
But appropriately for a movie based on magic and illusion, the numbers are just a wee bit deceiving. Harry Potter earned 43% of its take from 3-D screenings, which cost more to get in. Factor inflation into the mix, and we find that the flick—even with 4,375 theaters in play—was “only” the sixth highest watched film ever, behind The Dark Knight, a couple of Spider-Man films (the first and the third), The Twilight Saga: New Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
Still, for many of the folks who watched the Harry Potter finale this weekend, Deathly Hallows marked the end of an era. Some folks who had started reading the books in elementary school are now in (or even out) of college. Harry, Ron and Hermione grew up with them, quite literally, in some ways. The books and the movies are, for many, an intrinsic and inescapable part of their childhood, as much a part of their adolescent memories as family vacations, sleepovers and lazy summer days.
We need not tell you that Christians have been conflicted over the whole Harry Potter phenomenon since its inception. Some have embraced the saga’s good v. evil ethos and surprisingly spiritual underpinnings. Others have shied away from its darkness, violence and magic. And, as Adam Holz says in his outstanding review, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, perhaps more than any of the other films in the series, seems unlikely to resolve those tensions. Indeed, it highlights them.”
But whatever you think about the series, there’s no question it’s been a compelling, thought-provoking ride.
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