"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Earnes $159.7 million in US and Canada

Harry Potter cast a spell over moviegoers worldwide as the sixth entry in the fantasy franchise set a new opening record of $396.7 million, a clear sign that the lucrative franchise has lost none of its magic. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" earned $159.7 million in the United States and Canada, the sixth-biggest opening for a five-day period, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures said on Sunday , Washington Post reports.

Photo: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Earnes 9.7 million in US and Canada

Meanwhile, l eave it to the Warner Bros. marketing team to get the last nickel out of Harry Potter, beyond the nearly $5 billion the films have grossed at the box office worldwide.

The studio has been collecting millions more from the Harry Potter Exhibition, which opened April 30 and runs until September 27 in a pre-fab 10,000-square-foot tent directly in front of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, Reuters reports.

At the same time, as ticket prices continue to rise and new IMAX theatres spring up across the country, it's not really surprising that the latest Harry Potter film, "Half Blood Prince," would beat all of its predecessors in opening weekend box office receipts. Released on over 4,000 screens in the US, since Wednesday the 6th installment in the "Potter" franchise has earned over $159 million domestically, making it one of the strongest openers of 2009 (and of course the #1 movie) behind only "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." Becoming the highest grossing international debut of all time, however, in both standard and IMAX theatrical release, was probably something executives at studio Warner Bros didn't expect, Actress Archives reports.