Not 1, but 2 new Harry Potter movies
p2pnet news | Movies:- Good news for JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.
Warner Bros and the producers behind the $4.5-billion film franchise have decided to milk the seventh and last book absolutely dry by splitting it in two.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I will, “hit theaters in November 2010, followed by ‘Part II’ in May 2011, a decision that is being met around the world with fans’ cheers but also plenty of cynical smirks,” says the Los Angeles Times.
“The publishing industry is learning to live without new ‘Potter’ releases, but Hollywood just pulled off a trick that will keep its profitable hero on his broom into the next decade.”
Not the only trick, actually.
Billionairess Rowling says she’ll feel “exploited” if Steve Vander Ark’s Harry Potter Lexicon is published.
It went online it in 2000, “as a tiny little website with a few lists on it” and today has 700 + pages.
It was to have become a hard copy, but Rowling and Warner Bros are suing RDR Books, which planned to publish Vander Ark’s lexicon last November.
“This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet café while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing),” Rowling herself once said of it, calling it a website, “for the dangerously obsessive” said, “my natural home.”
However, now, “I believe that RDR’s book constitutes a Harry Potter ‘rip off’of the type I have spent years trying to prevent, and that both I, as the creator of this world, and fans of Harry Potter, would be exploited by its publication.”
Fans exploited? Like how?
Rowling apparently intends to write her own Harry Potter encyclopedia, donating the proceeds to charity.
Be that as it may, splitting the last book in two is, “the only way you can do it, without cutting out a huge portion of the book,” the LA Times has HP star Daniel Radcliffe saying. “It’s one driving, pounding story from the word go.”
Adds the story:
“The same could be said about the relentless ‘Potter’ franchise, which hit screens for the first time in 2001. The five ‘Potter’ films to date have averaged $282 million in U.S. grosses, but the overall receipts go well beyond that. The faces of the stars stare out from DVDs, video games, tie-in books, toys, clothing, candy wrappers and a staggering array of other items. By some estimates, the brand represents a $20-billion enterprise, and that’s without the planned ‘Potter’-themed complex opening next year at the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida.
“Extending the ‘Potter’ franchise is a boon to the studio and to its parent, media giant Time Warner, where recently named Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes is reining in costs with moves such as the recent gutting of New Line Cinema. Time Warner’s stock price has stagnated since its merger with America Online eight years ago.”
Deathly Hallows started showing up online almost minutes after it was published, but that doesn’t seem to have put a dent in sales or popularity.
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UPDATE:-
The trial date has been set for March 24, 25 and 26. Click here for details.
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Also See:
Los Angeles Times – ‘Deathly Hallows’ films are scheduled to be released in November 2010 and May 2011, March 13, 2008
suing RDR Books – JK Rowling vs The Harry Potter Lexicon, February 29, 2008
showing up online – Latest Harry Potter online, July 17, 2007
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