Weekend Receipts: Harry Potter Is Bathing In Goblin Gold With A $125 Million Opening Weekend

It didn’t come close to beating The Dark Knight’s opening weekend record, but somehow I think the braintrust behind the Harry Potter films is perfectly satisfied with its opening weekend gross of $125 million, the second largest opening of the year behind Iron Man 2. And far, far, far down the list, at number 5 is Russell Crowe’s Next Three Days. Chin up, mate! There’s always Robin Hood 2! Your weekend receipts are here.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Gross: $125,120,000 (new)
Screens: 4,125 (PSA: $30,332)
Weeks: 1

Like I said, it fell well short of The Dark Knight’s $158 million opening weekend. But the question I imagine WB execs are asking themselves is, “If we had those jacked-up 3D surcharges, could we have broken the record?” Hmmmm… probably. Part 2, you’re our only hope now!

2. Megamind
Gross:$16,175,000 ($109,476,000)
Screens: 3,779 (PSA: $4,280)
Weeks: 3 (change: -44.5%)

I literally have nothing to say about this movie, which came and left me like a bad piece of fish. Feel free to leave your deep thoughts, bitchy asides, and predictions of Tina Fey’s new asking price in the comments!

3. Unstoppable
Gross: $13,100,000 ($41,962,000)
Screens: 3,209 (PSA: $4,082)
Weeks: 2 (change: -42.3%)

You know how much collective fun the box office reporters of the world got to have last weekend when a movie called Unstoppable didn’t get to number one? So many bad puns, plays on words and variations on the obvious theme. God, it was heaven.

4. Due Date
Gross: $9,150,000 ($72,669,000)
Screens: 3,229 (PSA: $2,834)
Weeks: 3 (change: -40.7%)

Over/under on how quickly a semi-bowdlerized version of this shows up on Spike or TBS? I say it shows its bearded head sometime around Labor Day 2011.

5. Next Three Days
Gross: $6,750,000 (new)
Screens: 2,564 (PSA: $2,633)
Weeks: 1

I really want to start a horrible rumor about the Crash Curse, a curse that afflicts anyone involved with the worst Best Picture winner in recent history. Paul Haggis, the director of Next Three Days? Crash Curse! Ryan Phillippe, star of the cataclysmic MacGruber? Crash Curse! Be on your toes, Jennifer Esposito! Beware of the Crash Curse!

[Numbers via Box Office Mojo]

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VIDEO: What If Harry Potter Joined Slytherin?

· Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’s decadent premiere already happened, but if you aren’t Potter’d out, check out the Fine Bros. newest web series Harry Potter and the Rejected Scenes. How would Harry fit in with Slytherin? Let’s find out. [NextMovie]

· Jeff Gaspin is officially out at NBC. [Deadline]

· Are The Beatles finally coming to iTunes? We’ll find out tomorrow. [Vulture]

· Johnny Weir will judge on Skating with the Stars. He’ll be joined by Laurieann Gibson and 1948 Olympic legend Dick Button. [Zap2It]

· Love the first season of The Walking Dead while you can, because the second season probably won’t happen until next October. [THR]

· NBC’s promo for its new one-hour drama The Cape looks downright solid for a midseason premiere. [ONTD]

· Wait, will Kurt and Blaine hook up on Glee? Ryan Murphy’s playing games with your teenage dream. [Zap2It]

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Blitz Trailer: Jason Statham Does Dirty Harry

Jason Statham clearly does not mind being typecast. After playing the same role over a dozen times, he’s gotten the hard-boiled, soft spoken, totally lethal bad-ass down to an exact science, and he’s so good, you occasionally wonder what would happen if he pushed himself or took on a different type of role. But then a trailer like this UK one for Blitz comes along and reminds you of the totally insane renegade cop action you’d miss out on if Statham ever moved on.

Here, Statham plays a cop named Brant who plays by his own rules and is furious with a on-the-loose cop-killer. Dirty Brant admittedly does not roll of the tongue very well, so they named this movie after the villain, who, according to the trailer goes by Blitz - as in Blitzkrieg.

The images at first look pretty by the numbers, but there’s enough WTF moments in this trailer including a quick cut to an overweight stripper and a puzzling line about a criminal updating his Facebook status to make me think this one might be more like Crank with a straight face. Either way, just try not to smile as the supervisor yells “Do not let Brant engage!” while Statham ignores orders and continues in high speed, probably destructive pursuit of the villain.

Verdict: Let Brant engage.

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