Will the mighty Optimus Prime be taken down by a kid with a stick? In a bid to knock Transformers out of the top spot at the box office, Warner Bros. is giving the latest Harry Potter film the second widest release in cinema history. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix arrives in 4,285 theaters today, falling just shy of Disney’s 4,362-theater roll-out of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End earlier this summer. Phoenix also opens in a record 126 IMAX venues worldwide today and throughout the weekend.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the young wizard enters his fifth year at Hogwarts and finds more trouble brewing behind its gates. Harry and Dumbledore come under fire for their warnings of Voldemort’s return as a bureaucrat begins to seize control of the academy. The pic is based on the fifth book in author J.K. Rowling’s best-selling series, and features an ample offering of visual effects provided by Industrial Light & Magic, Framestore CFC, Double Negative, Rising Sun Pictures, The Moving Picture Company, Baseblack, Machine and Cinesite.
Advance ticket seller Fandango reports that hundreds of tonight’s midnight shows are already sold out, and that the film is currently selling more tickets than Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End sold at the same point in their sales cycles. Phoenix is accounting for 90% of Fandango’s weekly ticket sales.
A good number of IMAX screenings are also sold out throughout the opening weekend and some theatres are adding additional shows to accommodate the high demand. In addition to being digitally re-mastered into IMAX’s 2D format, the film’s finale has been digitally converted to stereoscopic 3D with IMAX Corp.’s live-action 2D to 3D conversion technology.
