You can hear headline writers rubbing their hands together in glee at the news that Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire won the weekend in the US with a “magic” $101 million. The film set a new record for a November opening, beating – coincidence alert! – Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, which grabbed $90.3 million. And for records-freaks everywhere, Goblet Of Fire’s Friday ($39.355 million) was second only to Spider-Man ($39.406 million) for a single day’s takings.
Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon have reason to be happy as well. Their Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line also opened well, dragging in a solid $22.4 million on its opening weekend. Meanwhile, Chicken Little finally started to follow the sky – falling to third place with $14.8 million, bringing its total to $99.2 million.
Elsewhere in the charts, there was little to be cheerful about. Derailed continue to do average business, with $6.5 million for the weekend bringing its grand total so far to $21.8 million. Zathura – the Jumanji sequel – didn’t exactly soar in its second weekend, with a disappointing drop to $5.1 million, while Jarhead was posted to sixth place, winning $4.8 million in its third week.
