'Harry Potter' Takes Down 'The Dark Knight'

Early reviews of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” bedecked it with more stars than the sky over Hogwarts, but most included one caveat: viewers who didn’t jump on the Hogwarts Express before now would be hopelessly lost. 

That was not a concern for the hundreds of Potter faithful who showed up for midnight showings of the film at the AMCShowplace Village Crossing 18 in Skokie, Ill.

People -- many of them dressed as characters from the seven-book series-- flooded in more than two hours before the film started. For some, the final Potter film marked the end of their childhoods. For others, this movie will be one of their formative experiences.

The final Potter film is expected to set a record breaking box office weekend, successfully dethroning "The Dark Knight's" $158.4 million mark set in 2008.

The Warner Bros. films have generated $6.4 billion in ticket sales since the first movie a decade ago, plus billions more from DVDs and merchandise. Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc, has been counting on a good opening weekend. Advance ticket sales reached more than $32 million, a pre-opening record, and many midnight and Friday show times sold out in advance.

Nina Codell, 12, and Stephanie Steger and Martin Barr, both 13, were too young to see "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" when it was released in 2001. But Steger and Barr said they became Potter fans in the first or second grade.

Steger inked the "dark mark" -- the insignia of the evil Voldemort's henchmen -- on each of the Skokie middle schooler’s arms.

Why come as villains? "Because they're cool!" Barr said.

Teresa Sadofsky, 22, of Chicago, couldn't agree more. She dressed as Bellatrix LeStrange, the dark witch portrayed on film by Helena Bonham Carter.

"She's such a badass," she said. This movie is bittersweet, she added, because she grew up with Harry Potter.

So did a generation, whose members eagerly awaited each new installment in both book and movie form. Their devotion has translated to piles of wizard gold.

Greeting moviegoers at Village Crossing were five Park Ridge teens all in full costume. Casey Hinds, 19, was a ringer for Ginny Weasley, while Jacklyn Barker, 19, and Ryan Murphy, 18, were dressed as Hogwarts ghosts the Gray Lady and the Bloody Baron. Stephanie Bergren, 19, dressed as Cho Chang, Harry's first crush, while Brendan Barker, 15, was Lucius Malfoy, the evil father of Harry's schoolboy nemesis.

The group went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter amusement park last year, and Hinds and Jacklyn Barker posted a YouTube video called "Hogwarts Girls," a takeoff on "California Girls."

The group mostly had the costume pieces already from years of dressing up. Judy and Diana Guerrero, sisters from Chicago, did not dress as characters but wore T-shirts and were taking their pictures with a Harry Potter cutout.

"They're our age, said Diana, 21. Judy, 23, recalled going to school an hour early to hear a teacher read aloud from the books when she was a child.

"We've been reading the books since we were little," Judy said. "And this is the end."

At the Village Crossing theatres, 3 a.m. showtimes were scheduled.