It’s a strong showing with $88.357 million taken at the box office. For a sequel. The Harry Potter franchise now holds two of the top three records for all-time opening weekends at the box office, the top spot still sitting with Spider-man.

Dan Radcliffe is quoted in the new issue of Reader’s Digest on his thoughts about Christmas: The moment when I understood there is an amazing man who visits children all over the world and gives them presents was mysterious and magical for me. I remember making sure that my list had been sent weeks before, …read more!

Now that I’m back and posting more news reports after a weekend planning Nimbus – 2003 at Disney World, I can finally say hello to the people about two rows back in the second set of seats at the 7pm showing who were talking about The Leaky Cauldron, but who left before I could get …read more!

Zap2it posted the text of a roundtable interview with director Chris Columbus about the future films and the possibility of a double DVD set which could include the first two films with commentary. [TLC has the tape of this interview and will post eventually, when real life stops getting in the way.]

Last week we posted links to an article in Slate which was highly critical of the Potter-verse. This week, David Edelstein has a counter-article in the same online magazine. He’s a fan of the books and makes many points similar to those we’ve been hearing from many of you in your notes to TLC and …read more!

The LA Times has an interesting analysis of the challenges inherent in filming Azkaban and Goblet of Fire.

Okay. I’ve fixed my weirded out nitpicks to take out things that weren’t even in the film… I’ve also added one or two, including a bit about one of Lucius’ final words in the film. Some countries still don’t have the movie, so I won’t reveal what it was or whether I liked it. I …read more!

The BBC reports that CoS set a new UK and Ireland box office record, taking £9.8m at cinemas in its opening weekend. It beat the previous best of £8.6m set by the first Potter film a year ago, the film’s producers Warner Bros said. The weekend worldwide take of $142m (£89m) smashed a number of …read more!

Rex Features has images up from the Los Angeles premiere from November 14. Dan wasn’t there, but Emma and Rupert were, along with other Hollywood players.

Reuters UK is reporting that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has grossed an estimated $87.7 million (55.5 million pounds) in its first three days of release across North America, which ranks as the third best opening of all time.