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$4.5 billion into the franchise, Harry Potter still has a few tricks up his sleeve. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth movie out of the eight in the series, had a magical $58.2 million debut in domestic theaters, the fourth biggest single day of box office ever. Combined with an equally staggering $45.9 million abroad, the latest J.K. Rowling adaptation has already earned $104 million worldwide in a span of 24 hours. Let's just say that initial demand was noteworthy.

In terms of how Half-Blood Prince got to $58.2 million, that is a bit more complicated. The film shattered the previous record for midnight sneaks, previously held by another premier Warner Bros. property, The Dark Knight. Last year's 800-pound box office gorilla managed $18 million worth of obsessive fanboys. Potter smoked that number with $22.2 million, an improvement of 23% over the old record. When I got to the theater yesterday and saw a packed house at Regal's showcase 18-theater Cineplex here in their hometown, I thought the film had a legitimate shot at The Dark Knight's daily record of $67.2 million and possibly even its five-day total of $203.8 million.

$22.2 million from what amounts to six hours of showings is an atom bomb of a box office explosion. The fact that it "only" made $36 million the rest of the day is...well, I don't want to say troubling or even disappointing. Neither of those terms would accurately summarize this unusual phenomenon of midnight frontloading. What should have happened based on the models of The Dark Knight ($18 million in midnight sneaks vs. a $67.2 million total first day of revenue) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($16 million in midnight sneaks vs. a $62.0 million total first day of revenue) is for Half-Blood Prince to have a factor of 3.7-3.8 more than its midnight sneaks. The previous Potter film, Order of the Phoenix, perfectly fits this model at 3.7 from its $12 million of sneaks to a $44.2 million first day. Even if we downgrade that multiplier a bit to allow for a larger opening number (remember that it's more difficult to have a larger multiplier with a bigger number), even a 3.2 would mean a $71.0 million first day. Yesterday at this time, I would have guessed that to be a reasonable amount to expect from Potter 6. $58.6 million reflects a 2.6 multiplier, which is...new.

So, what is going on here? I think the reasonable assumption is that this is a fluke more than anything else. If we go back to the performance of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix two years ago this week, there is something interesting to compare. If we take out the $12 million in midnight sneaks, its $44.2 million first day reflects $32.2 million of non-sneaks revenue. Once we adjust for two years of ticket price inflation, its actual day one is around $34 million. So, what has happened here is that after midnight showings, the performances are relatively similar with just a bit of overall growth (about 6%). The $10 million bump in midnight sneaks is what is a bit harder to explain. We will get into it a bit more when we get to Monday Morning Quarterback in a few days, but we're less worried about explanations at the moment than we are about what happens next. Let's quickly consider this.

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