Books

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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No, not either of the movies, though Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 does come in at number five for the biggest worldwide movie openings, having brought in more than $483 million. J.K. Rowling’s book, released five years before Harry’s final movie, sold astoundingly quickly with 11 million copies sold in the first 24 hours of its release in the U.S. and U.K combined.

That’s more than 458,333 books an hour for the first day of its release. Having purchased 8.3 million copies out of that 11 million, nearly 3 percent of the U.S. population purchased The Deathly Hallows the day it came out.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn

While the third book in the series had a solid release with 150,000 copies sold on its first day in 2007, the hype of the Twilight movie the next year helped bolster sales for the final book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga. Released in 2008, Breaking Dawn smashed the previous book’s day one sales efforts, moving 1.3 million copies on its first day.

The movies based off Meyer’s books have also had very solid releases, with the final movie sitting at 20th on the list of most lucrative opening weekends, having earned more than $340 million.