Shrugging off some lukewarm reviews, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, made $12m in a night of midnight screenings. The film, the fifth in the series, opened in 2,311 cinemas across North America - easily beating the $8m record for midnight showings set by The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2003. The success seems certain to continue as Order of the Phoenix expands to 4,285 screens from Friday, the largest number for any Warner Brothers release to date. The impressive attendance figures were echoed across the world. Order of the Phoenix can also boast the biggest opening of any Harry Potter film in countries as diverse as France, Australia and Malaysia. It opens in the UK tomorrow.

Michael Clayton, a legal drama starring George Clooney, is to receive its premiere at this year's Toronto film festival. A tale of unethical behaviour at the big law firms, the picture co-stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson and marks the directing debut of Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter of the Bourne trilogy. Elsewhere, a major theme of this year's line-up appears to be America's ongoing "war on terror", with screenings of the CIA drama Rendition, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon, and Nothing is Private, about the Gulf war. Starring Aaron Eckhart and Toni Colette, Nothing is Private is the directing debut of American Beauty writer Alan Ball. The Toronto international film festival runs September 6-15.

Anjelica Huston and Sam Rockwell are to play a mother and son in Choke, an adaptation of the novel by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. Rockwell will star as a con artist who deliberately makes himself choke in restaurants in an effort to fund his mother's hospital bills. The film marks the directing debut of Clark Gregg, an American TV actor who has had roles in The West Wing and The Shield and who can currently be seen in the sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine.