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Daron Aldridge: For me, the most impressive aspect of Part 2’s laundry list of accomplishments is the $43 million from late night/midnight. It simply decimated everything that the Twilight series had accomplished for its first day records. That shows the sheer power of Potter.

Max Braden: What impresses me most is that this is the eighth movie in the series and it's topping everything prior to it. There are so very few franchises that can sustain a good story and audience interest to even make a fourth movie, and we usually see a significant drop-off as a series fizzles out. The James Bond series had to change actors and reboot itself. Star Wars went to prequels. Here, not only do you have the continuity of the same group of characters, they've also been able to hold on to the same cast. And on top of that deliver a record-breaking finale. That's pretty amazing despite the noted inflation.

Kim Hollis: What I really think is notable here is that the film has smashed multiple records, and done so pretty handily. It wasn't even close. I also like that Warner Bros. is dancing in the hallways as they realize that since they're in control of The Dark Knight Rises next year, there's a chance they get the record a year from now as well. I was blown away at how busy the theater was over the weekend (I had to drive past it several times). Even on Saturday morning at 9 a.m., the parking lot was completely full. People were ready for this communal final experience.

David Mumpower: Out of the first six releases from this franchise, only one broke the $100 million barrier; that was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and it earned $102.7 million. For all of the mentions of box office inflation, that movie opened in 2005 and in the five year gap from then until the first Deathly Hallows title, there was a dramatic step backward with regards to the opening weekends of the next two releases, Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince. While each of those releases narrowly edged Goblet of Fire in terms of final domestic (and global) take, there wasn't as much of a rush factor with the fifth and six films.

Fast forward to Deathly Hallows and we have seen the two largest debuts for the franchise with the former breaking the previous mark by $22.3 million or 21.7% (!). When the seventh title beats the strongest of the other six prior releases by that much, I am impressed. Now we can factor in that Part 2 has upped that total by a jaw dropping $44.2 million or 35.4% (!!!!!). In only two releases, Harry Potter consumers fundamentally changed their behavior in how they wanted to consume the product. There was a 65% increase from the prior best opening weekend (Goblet of Fire) to the final release. Perhaps the most amazing aspect is that Deathly Hallows Part 2 just earned more on opening weekend than Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince combined.

Taking this in another direction, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone required nine days to reach $169.2 million. The other six titles ranged between seven and 15 days in attaining that amount of domestic revenue; the average for all seven was ten days. Deathly Hallows Part 2 was able to accomplish this a full week quicker than the average Potter movie and four full days quicker than any other had before. That's staggering.

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