On Thursday, Warner Bros. Pictures issued a statement regarding the critically lauded and financially successful Harry Potter franchise. Having shattered first-weekend records for a new release both in the United States and overseas, the franchise this week crossed the $7 billion mark worldwide. And the figure is still growing.
In the span of a week, The Deathly Hallows Part 2 grossed $640.2 million and surpassed Fast Five to become the third highest-grossing movie of 2011 so far. While it still lags behind Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the eighth and final installment in the Harry Potter series made it to $600 million in record time. It took eight days compared to Transformers 11 days and Pirates 12 days to reach that mark.
In addition to the franchise surpassing $7 billion globally, Harry Potter has also edged out George Lucas’s Star Wars saga to become the top-grossing franchise of all time domestically. That doesn’t take in account ticket price inflation, however.
