Any talk from skeptics last week about the box office potency of...

Any talk from skeptics last week about the box office potency of The Matrix has now been officially blown away.

The Matrix Reloaded blew apart expectations, grossing $US135.8 million over its first four days of release and $US93.3 million over the Friday-to-Sunday portion of the weekend. There are almost too many records broken to list them all, but here are a few: biggest opening day and biggest Thursday ($42.5 million), biggest four-day gross ($135.8 million vs. Spider-Man's $125.9 million), and of course, the biggest gross for an R-rated film (almost doubling Hannibal's open of $58 million).

The Matrix Reloaded cost WB and VRL about $150 million, half of the $300 million associated with the making of the two films. The film should make its cost back by the end of day on Monday and should crack $200 million by Friday. Where revenues go with the two films, the video game and the DVDs is anyone's guess, but my early call is that it's a $US3.5 billion to $US4 billion gross. Think that number is too high? Remember that the Harry Potter series has made $1.9 billion worldwide so far from only two films.

In Australia, the film is estimated to have made $11 million in its first weekend. That is also huge for a non-holiday weekend!

Looks like VRL's bet on the Matrix will pay off big time. If this doesn't move the share-price then nothing will.