Huge Weekend for HP

AP: Harry's 'Goblet' Nets $54.9M at Box Office---

LOS ANGELES - A boy wizard and a country-music legend outclassed a flurry of box-office newcomers over Thanksgiving. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" took in $54.9 million over the three-day weekend to remain the top movie, while the Johnny Cash film biography "Walk the Line" stayed in second place with $19.7 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

For the whole five-day Thanksgiving period, "Goblet of Fire" grossed $81.3 million to lift its 10-day total to $201.1 million, while "Walk the Line" took in $27.6 million, raising its 10-day total to $54.7 million.

The two films paced Hollywood to a healthy holiday weekend. If estimates hold when final numbers are released Monday, it would be the second-highest gross ever for the five-day Thanksgiving period at $218.3 million, beating last year's haul by 3 percent but finishing behind 2000's record $232.1 million.

That was a boost for the slumping movie business, which has had attendance running 8 percent behind last year's.

"You've got to look at 'Harry Potter' as being the savior of the box office right now," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "Who would have thought in a year we're having this down box office that we'd have the second-biggest Thanksgiving ever?"
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"Goblet of Fire" shot past $200 million domestically in just 10 days, the fastest of the four "Harry Potter" movies to cross that mark. The fastest-grossing of the previous movies was the first, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," which took in $186 million in 10 days.

"Goblet of Fire" could be on track to beat the $317.6 million domestic gross of "Sorcerer's Stone," the franchise's most successful installment.

"Goblet of Fire" has disproved speculation that its PG-13 rating — the first of the franchise to carry that tag, after PG ratings for the first three — might hurt the film by scaring off younger fans.

"We've learned the audience has grown older with the movies, so the PG-13 rating just played into the core of the audience," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which releases the "Harry Potter" films.