US/ BRITAIN:It's official. The boy wizard has trumped the light sabre, put a spell on the wise-cracking, Martini-sipping secret agent, and as for those hobbits ...
Figures released by Warner Bros, the studio behind the Harry Potter films, confirm that the series has become the highest-grossing film franchise. The five Potter films released to date have taken $4.47 billioworldwide, more than the six Star Wars films and more than the 22 Bond films.
The Potter franchise still has one film on release, the Order of the Phoenix, and two more set for release over the next three years.
Since 1962, the Bond films have taken $4.44 billion worldwide, while the Star Wars films, dating from 1977, have taken $4.23 billion. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is estimated to have taken just over $2.92 billion worldwide. The figures produced by the studio do not take inflation or ticket prices into account.
"It's just a fun number," Warner Bros president Alan Horn said. "It is not any way to diminish the box-office totals of Star Wars and the Bond movies."
The glee may be misplaced: Star Wars is still ahead of Potter in the US, grossing $2.18 billion, against Potter's $1.41 billion.
With another Bond film in the works, Ian Fleming's literary creation may come back to challenge JK Rowling's offspring. But the chances of a new episode emerging from a galaxy far, far away seem remote.