Sirius Black's Harry Potter News

It's official: Eight will be the magic number for the "Harry Potter" film franchise.

After months of rumors, Warner Bros. and the producers of the massively successful movies will announce Thursday that they plan to split "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," J.K. Rowling's seventh and final "Potter" novel, into two blockbuster films -- one to be released in November 2010 and the second in May 2011.


Source: LA Times

Several press conferences were held in London for Order of the Phoenix over this past weekend, with another one taking place just this morning. Now videos are starting to pour in - click here to view one from GMTV (with Dan), one from Sunrise (with a variety of cast), and one from Sky News (too with a variety of cast).

Entertainment Weekly has named J.K. Rowling their “Entertainer of the Year” for 2007 (cover here).The magazine says the reason they selected the Harry Potter author as their top entertainer was “because she did something very, very hard, and she did it very, very well, thus pleasing hundreds of millions of children and adults very, very much. In an era of videogame consoles, online multiplayer ”environments,” and tinier-is-better mobisodes, minisodes, and webisodes, she got people to tote around her big, fat old-fashioned printed-on-paper books as if they were the hottest new entertainment devices on the planet.”

JKRowling.com has recently been updated with several new features, including a special time turner on the Room of Requirement page. This enables visitors to view previous times in which the door on the site has been open.

Also, the Wizard of the Month section has been restructured so previous months and their respective wizards can be viewed.

You can also find out about the lawsuit that Jo and Warner Bros. has filed against the HP Lexicon and how that is progressing as well.

Warner Brothers has announced this evening that the Harry Potter series is the largest-grossing film franchise to date globally, surpassing Star Wars and and James Bond. Totaling $4.47 billion in ticket sales (with two films left to go, WB points out), several high-ups at Warner Brothers are quoted in the press release:
In making the announcement, Alan Horn [President & Chief Operating Officer] said, “It would be an understatement to say we are proud of the success of the Harry Potter films. We also want to congratulate all of the extraordinary actors, filmmakers and artists who have shared this remarkable cinematic journey with us.”

Spoiler alert: This story reveals some key plot points in the final Harry Potter book. So if you've haven't finished the book, J.K. Rowling asks that you not read this story. If you found the epilogue of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” rather vague, then J.K. Rowling achieved her goal.

The author was shooting for “nebulous,” something “poetic.” She wanted the readers to feel as if they were looking at Platform 9¾ through the mist, unable to make out exactly who was there and who was not.

“I do, of course, have that information for you, should you require it,” she told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira rather coyly in her first interview since fans got their hands on the final book.
Ummm … yes, please!

After weeks of hype ahead of the global release of J K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Saturday morning, retailers were clearly happy with weekend sales but were coy today about the details.

The Warehouse spokeswoman Cynthia Church said the chain sold 20 per cent more copies of the final instalment than of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Deathly Hallows averaged more than 300,000 copies in sales per hour globally - more than 5,000 a minute. It generated more than £125m ($250 million) of revenue, more than triple the opening weekend take for the latest Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which came out 10th July.