Harry Potter and the Huge Premiere (w/Poll)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince posted the franchise's best opening day yet, accompanied by a record shattering Midnight performance, but failed to best the year's and all-time opening day record holders.

The sixth movie in the sorcery-centric book-based group scored $22 million on Wednesday, July 15th at 12:01am. That figure strongly bested the previous Midnight winner The Dark Knight, which pulled in $18.5 million last year. However, the strong start did not allow it to surpass the other blockbuster hit of the summer so far, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which holds the Wednesday opening record with $62 million. Half-Blood Prince came in at a strong second with $58.2.

It should be noted that Half-Blood Prince also broke the record for widest PG Rated release, and approached some of the widest releases ever, with nearly 10,000 screens in nearly 4,300 locations domestically.

Internationally, the students of Hogwarts did great as well, pulling in $45.9 million. That brings the  worldwide gross over $100 million for opening day. All this adds up to yet another increase for the franchise, which should make Warner execs look forward to the final two films even more.