Variety.com - ‘Harry Potter’ toots box office horn

Warner Bros. is touting a Harry Potter milestone: Top-grossing film franchise worldwide. Ever. With two movies to go, the franchise had already hit $4.47 billion in worldwide earnings. This figure puts it above Star Wars and its sequels and prequels ($4.23 billion) and the 21 official James Bond movies plus the unofficial Never Say Never Again ($4.44 billion).

The success came over Labor Day weekend as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix reached a worldwide box office gross of $923.7 million. With Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows on the way, you might as well add another billion to the anticipated overall figures. No, seriously- a billion.

I will often point out how numbers are rarely adjusted for inflation with figures like these- in fact, Variety notes that inflation would still put Star Wars on top. Nevertheless, no one should really mind. The books were great, the movies have been a blast. If you haven’t jumped on the train to Hogwarts yet, what are you waiting for?

Filed under: Movies