‘Harry Potter’ earns $330mn debut weekend

NEW YORK - ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1′, made a grand opening with 330 million dollars in global ticket sales over the weekend.

The seventh Potter movie generated an estimated 125.1 million dollars in North America making it into No. 1 there, reports the New York Times.

It was the second-biggest domestic opening for the Harry Potter franchise; adjusting for higher ticket prices, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ sold 127.4 million dollars over its first three days in November 2005.

The strong results reflect a yearlong, full-court press by Warner’s global marketing chief, Sue Kroll, to position ‘Deathly Hallows’ as a must-see event for children and adults alike.

The advertising campaign played up the sophisticated, darker elements of the plot. Harry and pals are now grown up, for instance, and the good-versus-evil battle is intensifying as the story line reaches its climax.

The marketing materials also injected some edge into the franchise by taking risks like identifying the film only by the letters “HP7″ and splattering posters and billboards with what looked like blood; one poster depicted the Hogwarts castle in flames.

It paid off: about 25 percent of the North American audience for “Deathly Hallows” was in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic, according to Dan Fellman, Warner’s president of domestic distribution.

Fellman noted that “Deathly Hallows,” which earned positive reviews, beat “Alice in Wonderland” to become the top opening movie in Imax history.

“No other franchise has been able to age and expand the audience this way,” Fellman said. (ANI)