LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – British boy wizard Harry Potter made movie magic again at weekend box offices as the newest chapter, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” cast a spell in more than 50 countries and collected $330 million in global ticket sales.

That tally includes a best-ever U.S. and Canadian debut of $125.1 million in this latest adventure of the teenage sorcerer and his friends at Hogwarts school. Six previous “Potter” films collected $5.4 billion globally for the Warner Bros studio.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – British boy wizard Harry Potter made movie magic again at weekend box offices as the newest chapter, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” cast a spell in more than 50 countries and collected $330 million in global ticket sales.

That tally includes a best-ever U.S. and Canadian debut of $125.1 million in this latest adventure of the teenage sorcerer and his friends at Hogwarts school. Six previous “Potter” films collected $5.4 billion globally for the Warner Bros studio.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1″ slayed the competition in its weekend debut with a franchise best $125.1 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

Last week’s No 1. film, animated comedy “Megamind,” came in a distant second with $16.2 million, just ahead of runaway train flick “Unstoppable” with $13.1 million.

LOS ANGELES, Nov 21 (Reuters) – “Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows: Part 1″ slayed the competition in its weekend
debut with a franchise best $125.1 million in U.S. and Canadian
theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

Last week’s No 1. film, animated comedy “Megamind,” came in
a distant second with $16.2 million, just ahead of runaway
train flick “Unstoppable” with $13.1 million.

By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) – Seven years ago a chance encounter with a poor, young girl during a backpacking trip through Cambodia changed the life of Hollywood film executive Scott Neeson.

He was on a holiday from his pampered life in California and eating at an outdoor restaurant when a 9-year-old girl came begging for money. The next night she came back, and he knew she would be there the next day and the day after that.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Animated comedy ‘Megamind’ topped film charts for the second week on Sunday, claiming No. 1 at North American box offices with $30 million and beating new releases, including action flick “Unstoppable.”

The family-oriented comedy pushed its two-week total to $89.8 million and showed staying power in theaters with a decline of 35 percent from last week’s debut of nearly $48 million for its producers at DreamWorks Animation.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Oscar organizers began giving out film industry gold on Saturday when they bestowed honors on four movie veterans, including groundbreaking directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francis Ford Coppola.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science gathered a who’s who of Hollywood A-listers — including Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Oliver Stone and Robert De Niro — for their annual Governors Awards to give honorary Oscars to Godard, actor Eli Wallach and film historian Kevin Brownlow, for their work in the industry.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Forget the “Real Housewives” and trying to keep up with the Kardashians.

“Sarah Palin’s Alaska”, which makes its TV debut on Sunday, couldn’t be further from the pampered pooches and designer divas seen in much of the popular reality TV fare about the lives of American women.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Oscar-winning Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis, a master movie showman who brought some 500 films to the big screen including “La Strada,” “Serpico,” and “Three Days of the Condor,” has died at age 91.

The producer of Italian classics such as Federico Fellini’s “La Strada,” for which he won an Oscar, and Hollywood fare such as “Barbarella” and a “King Kong” remake, died at his Beverly Hills home late on Wednesday night, surrounded by his family.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has been called many things over the years, but a modern-day Willy Wonka may not be one of them. That is about to change.

This Friday, tucked within the pages of some 200,000 Playboy magazines on U.S. newsstands will be 10 “Golden Tickets” to the Midsummer Night’s Dream Party thrown by the pajama-clad playboy known to millions of readers as “Hef.”