Imgae: Indru Rizal
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two not only has the snappiest title of the year but has also gone to the top of the global box office for 2011. In a busy blockbuster summer the film has beaten all competition and surpassed the previous high earner, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
The film has now racked up an impressive $1.137 billion at the global box office to become the third highest grossing film of all time displacing The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King. James Cameron films Avatar ($2.78 billion) and Titanic ($1.84 billion) hold first and second place respectively but their grosses will prove insurmountable for the final Harry Potter film.
The results fully justify Warner Brothers’ decision to split the final book into two films as Part One has grossed more than $955 million since its release last November.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two was the first in the series to be released with post-production 3-D. According the BTIG media analyst Richard Greenfield at Studio Briefing, just 43% of the films domestic opening weekend gross came from 3D sales and just 34 percent of the audience chose to buy 3D tickets. Greenfield concludes that if audiences had been given the choice of more 2D screens, then the 3D grosses would have been even lower. This marks the continuing decline of interest in 3D in the US following disappointing returns for other event movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
According to Variety, Warner Brothers are hoping that the popularity will translate into recognition and they have begun a campaign to gain the fantasy film an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Genre movies don’t traditionally fare well outside of technical categories at awards ceremonies but Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is the exception that the studio will be hoping to emulate. The fact that there are now ten slots in the best picture category should also help give Potter a boost although many would argue it isn’t even the best film in the franchise. Should Deathly Hallows Part Two receive nomination, it would be more of a political acknowledgement from the industry of the significance of the series as a whole rather than any comment on the quality of the film itself.
Did you enjoy the final part of the Harry Potter franchise? Do you think it was worthy of an Oscar? Tell us in the comments section below.
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August 10, 2011
Movies