Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire from Warner Bros. worked its magic over the weekend, easily claiming the top spot at the North American box office with an estimated $101 million. Directed by British filmmaker Mike Newell (Donnie Brasco, Four Weddings and a Funeral), the latest film based on the books by J.K. Rowling is proving to be the biggest money maker of the series, despite its darker story and PG-13 rating.
Goblet will make a nice return on Warner’s $150 million investment. A lot of that budget went to the film’s state-of-the-art visual effects, provided by an army of artists from ILM, The Orphanage, BUF, The Motion Picture Company, Framestore CFC, Rising Sun Pictures, Cinesite, Animal Logic and Double Negative. The last Potter film, The Prisoner of Azkaban, opened to $93.6 million in June of 2004 and went on to take in more than $789 million worldwide.
Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic from 20th Century Fox, did surprisingly well, debuting at No. 2 with an estimated $22.4 million. Like last years’ Ray Charles cinematic biography, Ray, director James Mangold’s Walk the Line is garnering a lot of Oscar buzz, which ensures strong legs for months to come.
Dropping from No.1 to No. 3 is Disney’s lastest animated comic adventure, Chicken Little. Despite tough competition from Potter, the toon managed an estimated $14.7 million in its third weekend, bringing its domestic total to around $99 million and its worldwide take to an estimated $114 million.
Rounding out the top five for the week are The Weinstein Co.’s Derailed with an estimated $6.5 million and Sony’s Zathrua, which is tumbling down the chart with around $5.1 million in week two despite good reviews.
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