The final installment in the popular boy wizard franchise, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Potter, was released across America at midnight on Friday (15Jul11) and ticket sales for the first showings of the film soared way past the $30 million (£18.75 million) record held by last summer's (10) The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

And it's continuing to captivate cinema-goers - early weekend (15-17Jul11) estimates for the movie easily beat the 2008 Batman film The Dark Knight, which previously held the title with takings of $158.4 million (£99 million).

Shia LaBeouf's Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a very distant second place in the U.S. box office chart with $21.3 million (£13.3 million), and Jennifer Aniston's comedy Horrible Bosses is at three with $17.6 million (£11 million).

Family movies Zookeeper and Cars 2 round out the weekend's (15-17Jul11) top five in fourth and fifth place, respectively.