Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince crossed $300 million last week.

Completely underneath the radar and with no fanfare, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince crossed the $300 million mark on Tuesday, September 29th. It was its seventy-seventh day of release, which makes it one of the slowest-to-$300 million movies on record. It is now the second-highest grossing film of the franchise, beyond the $317 million take of the initial chapter, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Obviously inflation and ticket-price bumps are a factor (it has the second-lowest-attendance for the Harry Potter series behind Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). We'll see if the franchise can break out of its $290 million+ ceiling for the last two films. No harm if they can't, since this is already the biggest-grossing franchise in film history.

Scott Mendelson