Warner Bros. (TWX)
So there's this boy wizard you may have heard of. And in case you haven't, it's going to be hard to make it through this summer without bumping into a mention of Harry Potter.The fifth movie in the series based on the popular books by J.K. Rowling comes out in theaters just eight days before the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" hits bookstores.
It's hard to imagine how the hype about the last book will do anything but help the box office potential for the movie. In addition, this movie brings back all the main actors from the first four Potter films, which have combined to gross $1.1 billion in the U.S.
"Harry Potter is Harry Potter. There is a specific audience that comes out each and every time, and with the seventh and final book coming out, that will add to the Potter mania in July and will help sell tickets," said BoxOfficeGuru's Pandya.
But it's worth noting that the only other time Warner Bros. released a Potter film in the summer instead of the fall, it wound up grossing the lowest amount of the four movies.
Still, the $249.5 million box office take for "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Akzaban" is nothing to sneeze at. And Box Office Mojo's Gray predicts that Potter will wind up the biggest grossing film of the latter half of the summer.
