Goblet on fire

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.