In the United States and Canada, last week's champ, comedy "Megamind," came in a distant second with 16.2 million USD, just ahead of runaway train flick "Unstoppable" with 13.1 million.

But given the popularity of the "Potter" movies, the other movies had not been expected to be much competition for No. 1.

The 125.1 million U.S. dollars for "Deathly Hallows: Part 1" beat the previous best weekend debut for a "Potter" film in the United States and Canada, which was 102.7 million USD for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" in November 2005.

"Deathly Hallows: Part 1" rode up the box office charts to land at No. 6 on the list of all-time best weekend debuts, just behind the 128.1 million dollars from "Iron Man 2" earlier this year.

The movie, which is based on the final instalment of the series of best-selling books by author J.K. Rowling, collected more than 30,000 USD per theatre in just over 4,100 U.S. and Canadian venues. By contrast, "Megamind" took in 4,300 dollars per location in nearly 3,800 theatres.

Giant screen IMAX theatres generated 12.4 million USD of the U.S. and Canadian total of the "Potter" movie for a new IMAX record, beating "Alice in Wonderland" and its 12.1 million dollar IMAX debut, according to Hollywood.com Box-Office.

The movie played in some 54 overseas countries with highlights being 17.5 million pounds (28 million USD) in the United Kingdom and 15 million Australian dollars (14 million USD) in Australia.

Germany turned in a debut of 16 million euros (around 21.8 million USD), while Japan showed 1.2 billion yen worth of ticket sales (14 million USD), according to Warner Bros.

Ahead of the weekend, Warner Bros said it expected "Deathly Hallows: Part 1" to break the 100 million U.S. dollar barrier in the United States and Canada, while some box office watchers speculated it could reach as high as 150 million USD.

But only two previous movies have broken into that range.

Batman film "The Dark Knight" has the best-ever debut with 158 million USD in 2008, and No. 2 "Spider-Man 3" had a 151 million dollar debut in 2007, according to Hollywood.com Box-Office.

Dan Fellman, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros, told Reuters that "Deathly Hallows" performed well among all audiences and core fans had not wavered in their support.

"What sets this apart is that the audience has aged right along with the movie and the cast," Fellman said.

He declined to forecast a final domestic box office tally when the movie ends, but did say that he believed it would "start with a 3," meaning somewhere north of 300 million USD.

Of six previous "Potter" movies, only two have ended above that, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (317 million U.S. dollars) and "Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince" (301 million USD).

Rounding out the top five films in the United States and Canada were comedy "Due Date," in the No. 4 spot with 9.1 million USD, and behind it was the debut of the Russell Crowe drama, "The Next Three Days," with 6.8 million.