Yes, J.K. Rowling can’t stay too far away from her most popular creation: a new Harry Potter short story will be arriving this Halloween, on October 31st. The story will focus on Dolores Umbridge. Do you think some fans might take umbrage at that idea? Eh? Eh? Ok, I’ll stop (I’m sure that joke has been done a million times). The short story will show up on Pottermore.com, run 1700 words, and will feature “back story about Umbridge’s life filled with many new details, as well as Rowling’s revealing first-person thoughts and reflections about the character.” Check back on Halloween at Pottermore is you want to read all the villainous details then! Read more…
Warner Bros. has been hunting for the perfect director for the Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, and they seem to have, well… found him. In the most obvious place. David Yates, four-time Harry Potter director is in talks to direct the film (which will reportedly be the first of several. Of course). It’s a shame they didn’t take a chance on someone else with a more unique style, but I suppose “safe” is exactly what this whole project is. Yates is currently in production on his adaption of Tarzan, and will then more onto this next. Fantastic Beasts is currently scheduled for November 18th, 2016. Read more…
Though author J.K. Rowling has no plans to write any more Harry Potter novels, that doesn’t preclude spin-offs and short stories. Her latest addition to the Potter world is a continuation of her stories about the 2014 Quidditch World Cup Finals, posted on Pottermore. This latest story actually focuses on Harry Potter himself — now with “threads of silver” in his hair — reuniting with his friends, albeit written from the point of view of sensationalist reporter Rita Skeeter. If you’re a member of Pottermore, you can read the story (and many others) on that site, but for the rest of us, The Today Show has you covered. Read more…
Alfonso Cuarón is a popular guy — and everyone wants him to direct their next film. Warner Bros. is now trying to get Cuarón to direct two of its next films: the Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and The Shining prequel, The Overlook Hotel. Yes, you read that correctly: a prequel to The Shining. I’m not sure if that needs to happen. It’s not related to Doctor Sleep, Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining, so I’m not sure how exactly it’ll fit into the story. Could Alfonso do both? Possibly, if scheduling permits. Apparently he’s much further in talks for Fantastic Beasts, so that’s the most likely candidate right now, but who knows what could happen in the future! Read more…
I still haven’t had a chance to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Florida, and now they’re adding even more to it! While the park area launched with Hogsmeade in Universal’s Islands of Adventure, but with the new Diagon Alley area in the main park, there comes a new ride. Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts is based on the sequence from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. From the looks of it, guests can go into Gringotts Bank, open an account, go down into the vaults, and get caught up in the fight from the movie. I can’t tell how much of it will be built and how much of it will be on screens (like some other Universal rides), but hey, 4 minutes inside of a dark ride is pretty good these days. It seems short, but it’s much better than waiting an hour to get on for, say, 2 minutes of ride. Read more…
Most fan-made anime versions of Harry Potter seem to focus on how perfect the series would be for a romantic comedy, set in Hogwarts with attractive characters. Very few people go crazy with their mash-ups, like this new video from Nacho Punch. Take Harry Potter, then mix it with Akira to get a cyberpunk 80s anime version of everyone’s favorite wizard. Sure, I don’t think Akira is actually cyberpunk, but it’s got a lot of the visual cues from similar cyberpunk anime from the late 80s and early 90s. Beyond the parts that mesh well, I laughed at the superficial changes, like adding “cyber” or “neo” to words to indicate how futuristic things are. Read more…
Is there still money in the Harry Potter well? Warner Bros. sure thinks so, and they’ve announced that they’re adapting J.K. Rowling’s 2001 book called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for film. The big change? They’re getting Rowling herself to write the script this time around. There doesn’t seem to be a hard timeline yet, but I’m seeing a lot of excited Potter fans today peek their heads out over this news. Hopefully they’ll still be around in a few years when this arrives. And will casual fans want to see a film without Harry and the gang? Despite those concerns, I am still glad they’ve brought Rowling on to script it. Good choice! Read more…
With the recent release of Star Trek Into Darkness and the constant buzz surrounding 2015’s Star Wars: Episode VII, the franchises continue to be big in the public eye. But if these two franchises were stars, how bright would they be? The New Yorker has charted the two franchises, as well as several other prominent franchises throughout the past few decades, to see which franchise has raked in the most money. Unsurprisingly, James Bond wins that, due to there being 24 films in the franchise. But when ranked by what a franchise’s average film earned, Star Wars was the clear winner, as well as in franchise profitability. (Even the prequels couldn’t ruin that!) Since we can’t embed it, you can see the full chart here and find where your favorite franchise wound up. Read more…
LEGO fan Alice Finch embarked on quite the quest: to build all of Hogwarts. About 18 months and 400,000 bricks later, she finally finished it, and it’s been collecting awards and recognition ever since. It was actually first shown at BrickCon 2012 in October, but her collection of high-quality pictures of the entire model haven’t been revealed until now. And wow, what is there to say? It’s absolutely stunning and one of the most complex and impressive LEGO builds I’ve seen. Each side of it reaches nearly 13 feet long, and each inch is filled with tons of little details. The Brothers Brick has a great interview with Alice here, and check out her huge collection of images on her Flickr page! I’ve included a few below. Read more…
We haven’t really covered it much, but last month David Yates discussed plans for a potential Doctor Who motion picture. Yates, credited for directing final four installments of the wildly successful Harry Potter film franchise, mentioned his desire to reboot the series from scratch, setting aside the series crafted by Russel T. Davies and Steven Moffat. Though I couldn’t fathom why, Yates insists a reboot would be necessary for Doctor Who‘s transition to a feature film — Moffat doesn’t agree.
The Britain (and world at large) of the Harry Potter series has a lot of rebuilding to do after Voldemort’s defeat. How can the Ministry of Magic reclaim its good name? What can the leaders of both the Muggle and magical governments do to prevent the same thing from happening again? Those questions and more drove the creation of Post-Conflict Potter, an article by Foreign Policy magazine, wherein real experts on foreign policy suggest the ways that post-Potter Britain could fix itself. Honestly, I loved the Harry Potter books, but my larger questions about how the magical society presented in the books could even function put kind of a damper on Rowling’s otherwise meticulous world-building. Post-Conflict Potter is a great read that helps address some of those very questions. Read more…
The results for tonight’s Teen Choice Awards— established by Fox in ’99 —will make most full-grown geeks eyes’ roll: the befanged stars of The Vampire Diaries and Twilight took home awards, as did the wizards of Harry Potter and the awfully attractive and talented “outcasts” of Glee.
But maybe instead of rolling our eyes, we should consider opening them. Read more…
Yes, Virginia: the Harry Potter movies are over. But they went out with a bang— Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2broke the record previously held by The Dark Knight by earning $168.5 million in the U.S. The BBC also notes that the film broke four of the five records smashed by its predecessor, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, earning £23 million (about US$37 million) in its country of origin. Read more…
The other week, we showed you Michael Cera and the cast of Scott Pilgrim vs The World attempting British accents. They weren’t so bad with the exception of Cera, but then again, it’s a difficult accent to master. This time, however, the shoe’s on the other foot as Daniel Radcliffe and the cast of Harry Potter try their hands at an American accent. Being American, I couldn’t imagine our accent is so difficult to emulate, especially when I listen to actors like Hugh Laurie pull it off with such ease — that was, until I saw this clip. Of all his castmates, the only one who had me convinced was Rupert Gint, but Tom Felton wasn’t so bad either. Emma Watson, who I thought would have it in the bad, seemed to struggle the most. In case you live under a rock, and haven’t seen it,or read it already, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 hit theaters last week.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” goes the old saying, so it only makes sense that Harry Potter and his friends would be able to make an easy transition from contemporary fantasy to hard sci-fi. Kathryn Hudson cooked up this variation on the Potter theme, making Harry and his school pals the crew of the ISS Griffin, fighting against the Slytherin Alliance and the alien lord Voldemort. My only complaint, besides the misspelling of “Ginevra,” is that Ron looks handsome. What the! And an earring? How very un-Weasley. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Nov 2, 2010 in Cinema, Tech
Back in April, Paramount teamed up with Seagate to produce a special edition hard drive that came loaded with select movies, such as Abram’s Star Trek. Well, it sees Buffalo will be taking this cross promotional concept a step further with their upcoming Harry Potter hard drives. Buffalo has teamed up with Warner Home Video in order to load the drives with all six films to date. The films will come in a DRM-locked DivX format and require an Internet connection to be played. Chances are, if you’re reading this, that won’t be a problem. Aside from having the movies sitting on the drive, the only film-related reference seems to be the Harry Potter logo located on the external drive itself. Nifty, but is it worth the price? I guess we’ll have to see when it’s announced, along with the official release date later this month.
Bucking the trend completely, Warner Bros. has officially backed out of plans to release Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One in 3D, citing that time constraints wouldn’t allow for a quality conversion. Believe it or not, this actually bodes well for 3D cinema on the whole — it’s the first time a studio has come out in favor of quality over quantity where 3D is concerned. However, Warner Bros. still plans to release the second Deathly Hallows film in 3D, so I’m not sure if we can chalk this up as a win for 3D cinema just yet. Read more…
