“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment in the “Potter” franchise, grossed an estimated $58.3 million as reported by box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

The sixth “Harry Potter” film has seen the biggest-ever opening day thus far for the series. The movie, based on J.K. Rowling’s hit book of the same title, grossed Hollywood’s fourth-highest single-day score, trailing behind “The Dark Knight,” this summer’s blockbuster hit “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “Spider-Man 3.”

Although “Half-Blood Prince” — starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint — came fourth in terms of opening night figures, it topped “Dark Knight” in the midnight screenings category after the sixth “Harry Potter” movie brought in a hefty $22.2 million in midnight screenings alone.

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Filming for the final instalment of Harry Potter will officially begin in February 2009. But the question of whether the cast will be pulling double duty for two films based on “The Deathly Hallows” is still unanswered.

Producers David Heyman and David Barron told the Daily Telegraph that they are conflicted about the decision.

The only negative of splitting the book into two films is that people could possibly perceive it as being one last chance at cashing in,” Barron lamented.

“But the real positive, if we were to do that, would be that we wouldn’t have quite the battle we always have of ‘How do you compress all that book into just over two hours of screen time?’ It would be brilliant not to have to cut anything. But at the same time, we have to think it through properly. We’d have to be very certain that there were two proper, stand-alone films that could be generated from the source material.”

Though they’re not rushing to make the final decision, Heyman said that “something will be announced in the not-too-distant future.”

As for the sixth instalment, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” filming is currently on-going and will wrap in May, with a November release expected.

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