Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince scored a record-breaking $396.7 worldwide over the Wednesday to Sunday span, making it the biggest five-day start of any movie ever.  $159.7 million of that came from the U.S., which isn’t quite as record-breaking but is still 13% bigger than what Order of the Phoenix did two years ago.

The demand seemed to be sky-high up front as the flick made $22 million just from the Tuesday night midnight and 3 a.m. showings — another record.  After that, it leveled out a bit, maintaining about a 10% lead over Order of the Phoenix and dropping slightly below it on Sunday and Monday.

Put together, what we’re looking at is a final domestic gross that’s very comparable to the last two movies’ $290 million — although breaking the $300 million mark is still very much a possibility, especially with more high-priced IMAX screens freeing up in the next few weeks after their one-month exclusive Transformers 2 run ends.