This past weekend, Hollywood could only look on with Muggle-minded envy as J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" -- the third sequel to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone" -- made its smashing debut. Lines stretched out doors at its midnight unveiling; fans dressed like their favorite characters; endless media jawing fed the hype. In short, the book arrived with all the accoutrements of a summer box-office blockbuster -- except that this summer, no Hollywood blockbuster has managed such a wizardly opening.

Consider the numbers: Since the book's first printing effectively sold out -- in Los Angeles, the Borders on La Cienega Boulevard devoured its Potter allotment on Friday night -- its publisher, Scholastic Press, could theoretically claim an opening weekend gross of $90.8 million. (That's 3.5 million copies at a list price of $25.95.) Of course, lots of bookstores and online sellers were discounting the thing by 30 to 40 percent. But even an across-the-board discount of 35 percent still produces an opening weekend haul of $59 million -- bigger than any other movie this season. By comparison, "M:i-2," the leader of the pack, scored $57.85 million over the Friday-to-Sunday portion of the Memorial Day weekend. Last weekend’s surprise hit, Dimension Films' gross-out horror parody "Scary Movie," racked up $42.3 million, the largest opening ever for an R-rated flick. (Advance tracking had low-balled its appeal, predicting a $32 million opening.) "The Perfect Storm," the July Fourth winner, posted $41.5 million over its first three days.

Figure it another way: What if the latest "Harry Potter" had actually been a movie opening? Those 3.5 million book-buyers would have conservatively translated into 10.5 million tickets -- presuming each book-buyer brings a parent and a sibling or friend. At an average ticket price of $5, that amounts to $52.5 million -- easily. Again, it's a number that would have challenged any of this summer's so-called box-office hits. No wonder the weekend's lone family-friendly feature, "Disney’s The Kid" -- which stars Bruce Willis as a man who literally encounters the child within -- opened to a lackluster $12.7 million. It had the misfortune of facing the "Harry" juggernaut.

"The movie did just about the business we expected it to," insists one Disney insider. Still, it's a reasonable assumption that Harry fans -- having stayed up late Friday to buy the book, and then passed the rest of the weekend buried in its 734 pages -- were in no need of a Disney fix (so much for the shameless use of "Disney" in the film's title).

Nonetheless, "It was an extraordinary weekend," argues Sony Pictures distribution chief Jeff Blake. "Business was up 25 percent over last year." According to Blake, "No one knew 'Scary Movie' would do $43 million. Both 'The Perfect Storm' and 'The Patriot' had strong holds on their second weekend, 'Chicken Run' held on and 'The Kid' has gone on to do $1.8 million on Monday and $1.7 million Tuesday, so I don’t think you can count it out yet."

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