LOS ANGELES, July 11 (UPI) -- Midnight showings of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" at U.S. theaters yielded box office magic, scaring up an estimated $12 million in receipts.
The take from the first Wednesday screenings of the fifth Potter movie was $4 million more than current box office champ "Transformers" grossed all of Tuesday, E! News reported.
The midnight screenings were in roughly 2,300 theaters. Wednesday's formal daytime opening was to play at 4,285 theaters, the second-biggest release ever, behind "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," which opened in 4,362 movie houses in May.
"I was out last night, and I saw lines of kids in tents," Exhibitor Relations' Jeff Bock told E! News, in describing the witching-hour scene at a suburban Los Angeles theater.
Bock said "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" could make a run at the "Spider-Man 2" record for the biggest Wednesday opening -- $40.4 million, set in 2004 -- and, by the end of the weekend, could have spirited away more than $120 million.
