The staggering domestic total for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2" is the best three-day opening for a film ever, distributor Warner Bros said on Sunday. It beat the previous record of $158.4 million over the initial three days for the 2008 Batman movie, "The Dark Knight."
Internationally, the finale for "Harry Potter" captured $307 million in 59 countries since it opened last week, another record. That includes weekend sales plus Wednesday and Thursday for some markets.
The prior record for an overseas opening belonged to "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," the fourth installment of the series released in May, which took in about $260 million outside North America in its debut.
The eighth film in the "Harry Potter" series about a teenage wizard and his friends battling against evil also set records for the largest opening-day domestic sales total, largest midnight screenings and largest opening on giant IMAX screens.
The movie took in an average $38,526 on more than 4,300 screens, according to Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Inc. It was the first "Potter" film also released in 3D.
"Harry Potter," already the highest-grossing film franchise ever with over $6.4 billion in global ticket sales, is based on the novels of British author J.K. Rowling.
Box office all-time records
It currently holds the following U.S./Canadian box office records:
It also holds the following international box-office records:
