Deathly Hallows I breaks Box Office record before release

Warner Bros. is getting ready for a record-breaking weekend with its latest movie of Harry Potter series. But Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, which has released on Friday has already broken the records at the Box Office even 36 hours before its release.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I is being screened in 3,700 midnight locations, which is a record, with the screen count to adjust based on the demand so that figure could climb even higher. The general theater count for Friday's release is already 4,125, a November record for the Harry Potter franchise, with over 9,000 screens.

In addition to these unprecedented numbers, Warner Bros' Dan Fellman has lined up 239 IMAX Theatres, another record (the last HP only had 166 IMAX screens). Since almost all the IMAX have sold out the weekend already, they are adding a 3 AM show starting with the first midnight show, my insider says. There are also an additional 65 'Special Presentation Circuit Screens'. Most importantly, the studio already has $25 Million in advance ticket sales, another record. "All good news for a huge HP weekend," a Warner Bros exec gushed.

Fandango, the giant online ticket seller, just reported to Oneindia that it has now sold out more than 2,200 showtimes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I in advance of its opening tomorrow night at midnight. The film represents 96% of Fandango's daily ticket sales. "A healthy percentage of Part I tickets were sold via Fandango"s mobile apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and Palm Pre," exec Harry Medved tells me.

Meanwhile, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part I today catapulted to the No. 5 advance online ticket seller of all-time today at MovieTickets.com. The movie closely trails No. 4 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. "With less than 48 hours still available for advance ticket purchases prior to the film"s premiere, it could climb even higher," MovieTickets.com says. As of 11 AM ET today, MovieTickets.com reports the following HP7 updates: that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I represents 94% of all of today"s ticket sales at MovieTickets.com, with over 1,900 sellouts already (though there are plenty of tickets still available for purchase) and more than 160 sellouts in New York and Los Angeles.

Fandango ran a new survey this week on the Part I ticket-buying page on Fandango, and here are the results from more than 1,000 respondents. Some 70% of respondents to were age 34 or under; 73% are female:

-- 97% say they"re excited to see the characters in a more mature Harry Potter storyline.
-- 94% said the darker elements of Part 1 increase their interest in seeing the movie.
-- 73% say they feel like they grew up with Harry Potter.
-- 68% say that Daniel Radcliffe"s and Emma Watson"s 'vigorous kissing' scene (Radcliffe"s wording) increases their interest in the movie.
-- 52% predict Emma Watson will be the first, among the three stars, to win an Oscar for a future role.

Business Figures:

Harry potter1 - 9cr with 101 prints
Harry potter 2- 11cr with 89 prints
Harry potter 3 - 15cr with 47 prints (This was not dubbed rest all HP films where dubbed in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu)
Harry potter 4 - 20cr with 143 prints
Harry potter 5 - 30cr with 281 prints
Harry potter 6 - 31cr with 353 prints
Harry potter 7 (part 1) - released on 19th Nov with 500 prints
Harry potter 7 (part 2) - releasing on 15th July"2011.