All these midweek openings are given me a hard time trying to write up how successful the big movies are in relation to previous flicks in the series. As things stand right now, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had the third widest opening of all time resulting in a $140 million taking since it’s Wednesday opening, $77 million of which came over the weekend.

This Harry Potter movie is the first to have been released in July, with the majority of the previous releases coming in November. Has this been a success? Well the taking so far seems consistent with previous movies in the franchise but it’s the big drop they need to be wary of. Whilst Potter could stay pretty much steady over the last weeks of the year when tent-pole releases are scarce, the question as to whether it will have the same luxury in the heavy summer weeks is a little tricky, although next week see’s a distinct lack of a huge blockbuster release.

Last week’s number one Transformers dropped 49% in takings which is quite a big number for the original non-sequel blockbuster and Pixar’s Ratatouille ($143 million) begins to pull away from Live Free or Die Hard ($102.9 million).

After Dark’s desperate attempt to generate some curiosity over their horror flick Captivity earlier this year, meant little advertisement and a constantly changing release date. When all is said and done, the movie took home $1.5 million to open at 12th.

OPENING NEXT WEEK:

Hairspray, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Sunshine, Goya’s Ghosts (limited)

source – box office mojo, imdb