Harry casts spell at box office

2005-11-21 10:26

Los Angeles - Harry Potter cast a spell on North American moviegoers over the weekend as the scariest film in the teenage wizard series grabbed $101.4m (about R676 525m) at the box office, early figures showed on Sunday.

The highly-anticipated opening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, based on the latest book by British author JK Rowling, was the fourth highest opening gross of all time, pulling Hollywood out of a slump, according to California-based box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Critics have described the film, directed by British filmmaker Mike Newell, as the scariest in Rowling's series, which follows the adventures of the growing young wizard at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Potter bewitches competition

Goblet of Fire, the fourth instalment in the series, is the first Potter film to be rated PG-13, forcing children under 12 to see the flick with an adult.

In the film, the bespectacled hero, played again by Daniel Radcliffe, is tormented by his old evil nemesis, Lord Voldemort, and enters a dangerous multi-wizardry school competition.

Potter bewitched his Hollywood competition at the box office, far outdoing Walk the Line, a biopic about country legend Johnny Cash which made an estimated $22.4m, according to Exhibitor Relations.

Last week's leader, Walt Disney's animated flick Chicken Little, fell to third place as it gobbled up $14.7m.

Derailed, a thriller starring Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen, was in fourth place with $6.5m, while the children's sci-fi fantasy Zathura: A Space Adventure took in $5.1m and the fifth spot.

Jarhead, a drama about United States military snipers in the first Gulf War starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, was sixth with $4.8m.

Improvement in box office revenues

The drama Get Rich or Die Tryin' starring rapper 50 Cent took the seventh spot with $4.3m, trailed by the horror sequel Saw II with $3.9m.

The sword-fighting adventure The Legend of Zorro, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas as the masked crime-fighter, was in the ninth spot with $2.3m.

Rounding off the weekly top 10 ranking was a new film version of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice, which took in $2.1m.

Thanks to Potter's magic, box office revenues were up over the weekend after being down most of the year, according to Exhibitor Relations.

The 12 top-grossing films are expected to draw $171m, a 19.5% increase over the top 12 films which made $143.1m over the same period last year.

Final box office figures are due on Monday.

- AFP