“Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince” breaks midnight records after Tuesday night’s screenings take in $22.2 million, the biggest midnight opening ever.

*UPDATE*
From AP:

Harry Potter has returned with some princely returns at the box office.

The new big-screen adventure “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” took in $79.5 million domestically over opening weekend and $159.7 million since debuting last Wednesday.

That’s the second-highest start ever for a movie premiering on Wednesday, trailing the $200 million five-day opening for last month’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

The sixth movie about the young wizard came in $20 million ahead of the last movie, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which grossed $139.7 million in its first five days two years ago.

——————
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” from Warner Bros. beat the old record for Wednesday midnight screenings of $18.5 million held by 2008 Batman movie “The Dark Knight,” said Hollywood.com Box Office President Paul Dergarabedian.

According to Reuters,the debut “portends a huge and potentially record-breaking number for a single-day (box office) gross and best first five-day gross,” among movies, Dergarabedian said.

The highest one-day U.S. box office record belongs to “The Dark Knight,” which debuted on a Wednesday last summer to $67.1 million and went on to $203.7 million in its first five days. It earned $1 billion worldwide throughout its run in theaters.

The five previous “Potter” movies about the adventures of Harry and his friends at the Hogwarts school, based on the best-selling kids books by author J.K. Rowling, have raked in $4.5 billion worldwide since the first film in 2001.

But in recent weeks, some media reports have suggested the movies’ fan base of teenagers and pre-teens may now be too old for the movies and that other franchises, such as the popular “Twilight” films, may steal some of Potter’s audience magic.

Still, “Half-Blood Prince” hits theaters a full two years after the most recent “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” causing box office watchers to see a good deal of pent-up demand for the movie.

“Order of the Phoenix” also opened on a Wednesday and took in $140 million in its first five days, on the way to $938 million in total global ticket sales. Warner Bros. is a unit of Time Warner Inc.