It's no surprise that as of Monday AM in advance of a Wednesday opening, MovieTickets.com is reporting over 1,300 sold out showings for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince worldwide, including over 950 stateside midnight sellouts.

By 1:30 PM Eastern Time Monday, 93 % of all tickets sold at MovieTickets.com were Half-Blood Prince, which is currently outpacing seven of the Top 10 Total Ticket Sellers of All-Time, only coming in behind No. 1, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, No. 2, The Dark Knight and No. 4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

· No. 3 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King · No. 5 The Passion of the Christ · No. 6 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest · No. 7 Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers · No. 8 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix · No. 9 Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones · No. 10 Matrix Reloaded

I do recommend seeing Half-Blood Prince on IMAX, because it is so impeccably made that it will withstand that level of scrutiny. In this week's Movietickets poll, among 3516 people voting, 57% will see the movie before it opens on IMAX July 29; 29% plan to see it in both theaters and IMAX, and 14% will wait for the IMAX debut.

With the field for the best picture Oscar broadened to ten, a batch of summer movies are now positioned for possible inclusion. Yes, year-end movies still have the advantage. It used to be that a summer movie had to be strong and the late-season weak for it to make the top five (think Sea Biscuit, Apollo 13, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator). But this year, five summer movies could score a top ten slot, from crowd-pleasers Up, Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to higher-end fare such as Public Enemies and Hurt Locker.

The good news for Public Enemies is that the Academy screening this weekend was packed, probably the best-attended so far this year. But it didn't earn a rousing reaction. Michael Mann, Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and director of photography Dante Spinotti did nab a smattering of applause. My guess: it will rack up some nominations by year's end, especially in the acting and tech categories--Marion Cotillard is a front-runner for supporting--but might not go all the way. By then, the $100-million period epic may look like a picture that didn't make its money back. The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, could have long legs indeed, and will look like a movie that overcame considerable obstacles en route to inevitably landing on many critics' ten best lists.

A surprisingly robust Academy possibility is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. While so far the series has been overlooked for best picture, that will work in this film's favor. Half-Blood Prince, while costly ($250 million), is just about the best-made picture I've seen in many a moon. This Potter is as elegantly designed as a Pixar movie.Its tech credits are outstanding: period production design and costumes, cinematography, and visual effects (the quidditch matches are stunning).

What about the actors' branch? Well, admittedly, like the Lord of the Rings ensemble, Potter's gang of kids won't score any noms, but Michael Gambon as Dumbledore could land a supporting nod, as Ian McKellan did as Gandalf in 2001's Fellowship of the Ring. In this film, Gambon gets plenty of screen time and is aged and beloved, as opposed to charmingly villainous Alan Rickman as Severus Snape.

Harry Potter has similar factors going for it as the third Lord of the Rings installment, The Return of the King (2003). Both films boast complex scale and scope, and period always helps. The Fellowship of the Ring earned 13 nominations including best picture, and won four. The Two Towers was nominated for six and won two. Then The Return of the King swept all eleven Oscars for which it was nominated, including best picture. Finally, it was time for the Academy to overlook the fantasy blockbuster ensemble side of the equation and reward the quality of the filmmaking. Besides, while genre films have long suffered with Oscar voters, those prejudices have been subsiding ever since 1991's The Silence of the Lambs.

Conventional wisdom deems the Harry Potter series as too popular to score with Oscar. So far five films have generated $7.2 billion worldwide in box office and DVD sales. While David Yates may not be Peter Jackson, the Brit director has kept this franchise on track through installments five and six, and brought Half-Blood Prince's craftsmanship to an extraordinary level. He's also set to direct the last two films covering J.K. Rowling's final book, The Deathly Hallows. Warners expects to open the first in November 2010 and the second in July 2011. Academy voters may choose to hold off--The Return of the King was the ultimate LOTR movie. But what if Half-Blood Prince--my daughter's favorite of the lot--marks the series' peak?

If as many as five summer movies make it to the Oscar Ten, the Academy Governors will be very very happy. That's just what they wanted.

It was utterly predictable. On the strength of audience curiosity stoked by Universal's mammoth (and expensive) global marketing campaign, Bruno opened to a solid opening day, followed by a dramatic drop-off due to catastrophic word-of-mouth.

Reviews were mixed (55% on Metacritic). Some critics appreciated Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles' confrontative shock tactics that pushed moviegoer buttons. The Voice's J. Hoberman addresses both Bruno and Lynn Shelton's micro-budget indie flick Humpday. The Guardian analyzes Baron Cohen's sexual neuroses, while the NYT checks out his costume designer. But At the Movies' mainstream Two Bens were typical: neither recommended that audiences "see" the film.

Anyone who has ever been to an exhibitors' convention like ShoWest knows that while American moviegers have a huge appetite for raunchy comedies, they are made extremely uncomfortable about sex unless it is really really funny in a way that relieves anxiety. Americans tend to be skittish about explicit sex (Showgirls, Striptease). Up-close man-on-man sex, real-life swingers and sado-masochism don't fall inside their comfort zone. Finally, the Puritan ethic lives on.

Unfortunately for Bruno, its opening weekend was its one shot--the fall from grace will continue. Besides, audiences will be distracted by some very pleasant summer nights at the movies. With just-about universal appeal, Wednesday opener Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (see clips below) could dethrone the mighty Transformers:ROTF (although that is tall order) and on the specialty front, Fox Searchlight's anti-romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer will score, pushing Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt into the rising stars category.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when Potter isn't whisking through space on Dumbledore's arm (this is really a father-son fromance) or dipping his face into other people's creepy memories, he and pals Ron and Hermione are entangled in various teen love intrigues--one even involves a powerful love potion. Movieline goes to the source (Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson) to get the skinny on who hearts who.

Is Warner Bros. risking fixing a franchise that isn't broken by going PG with its latest Harry Potter movie, Half-Blood Prince? In an unusual twist on the usual ratings complaints, Warners wasn't seeking a gentler family-friendly rating, writes Pam McClintock :

Rather, the ratings board determined that nothing depicted on the screen warranted the more restrictive PG-13 designation.

Yes, the franchise is so established at this point that PG may not harm its b.o. potential. But why take a chance? Why not include some PG-13 material just to be on the safe side? This is where critics and PR will help--a lot. So far, early word is that the movie skews adult, dark and thriller, so the franchise hasn't exactly turned soft and fuzzy. Stories and reviews will clue in teens and adults that the movie can be intense and PG at the same time. And parents will feel safe to bring the little ones.

First the media touted the uptick in 2009 theatrical business, now they're pointing to a downturn compared to last summer's b.o., a few big flops and the absence of blockbusters. "Through Sunday, summer B.O. revs stood at $1.46 billion, compared to $1.47 billion last year," reports Variety.

Hold on folks, it's early days yet. Everyone knows what the blockbusters will be (besides Up): Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Disney's pairing of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal should yield strong returns with the femme demo. But word is that neither Universal's Bruno nor Public Enemies will break out huge. And Sony's Year One and Paramount's G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (which had a disastrous preview) look soft indeed.

Here are some summer lessons:

2. Origin myths sell. Star Trek skipped behind the other ten movies and went back to the beginning. Director J.J. Abrams found the right balance for Trekkies and newbies alike. Gross to date: $233 million so far.

3. Smart R-rated dumb male comedies sell. Always have, always will. The Hangover is the summer's sleeper hit, grossing more than $110 million in its first two weeks. The best news for Warner Bros: no talent profit participants. The bad news: they have to share with partner Legendary Pictures.

4. R-rated dumb male comedians don't sell in family movies. Universal miscalculated by starring Will Ferrell in $100-million remake Land of the Lost. The studio pulled the second weekend print ads on the picture, an unusual move. Gross to date: $36 million.

5. Eddie Murphy without makeup doesn't sell. I rest my case with Imagine That. Put Murphy under pounds of makeup playing a character, and they show up. Give him a role playing someone close to himself and audiences stay away in droves.

6. Lackluster sequels sell--but don't break out big. The key with these tentpole franchises is keeping up the quality.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which cost $150 million, opened huge and dropped off drastically. That means Fox's massive marketing budget pulled the core comics fanbase, but the movie failed to broaden. Gross to date: $176 million domestic, $353 million worldwide.

The sequel to The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, also scored big overseas ($415 million) but did middling business stateside ($124 million). To my mind Ron Howard delivered a better E-ride this time. But the book and the movie lacked the compelling Christian scandale that the first one had. This movie was (expensive) standard-issue.

Despite McG's $200-million budget, Terminator Salvation failed to improve on its predecessors and seemed oddly retro. The highlights were not Christian Bale, who seemed to be channeling Batman, growl and all, but supporting performers Sam Worthington and Anton Yelchin. Gross to date: $115 million, plus $100 million overseas.

We've all seen our share of Harry Potter movies but this trailer for the Half-Blood Prince really creeped me out.

Empire looks ahead to The Deathly Hallows.

Former SXSW producer Matt Dentler made the announcement today (via Facebook), that mega video site Hulu would be streaming a trio of last year's SXSW competitors. Mary Bronstein's quirky drama, Yeast, Josh Koury's doc about Harry Potter fans, We Are Wizards, and Gabriel Fleming's drama, The Lost Coast.

Here's We Are Wizards. Enjoy!

We've been teased. But here's the first full trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It was originally supposed to be opening this weekend, but was pushed back to July 17, 2009. (Twilight took its slot.)

A key story of summer 2008 is the rise of Marvel Entertainment. Now in charge of its own destiny with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk, the company is actively developing its own characters for movies down the line. And execs are willing to defend Marvel's long-term interests, whether that means negotiating tough with Jon Favreau on directing the Iron Man sequel or telling Edward Norton that some of his favorite scenes in Incredible Hulk will have to wait for the DVD.

At the Hellboy II premiere, Favreau told me he that while he was planning to do Iron Man 2 and wanted to do The Avengers as well, Marvel was unlikely to wait for him to do both. The "official" announcement will likely wait for Comic-Con.

Now execs at DC Comics are taking note. Long more passive in their relationship to their films, there are signs of change, reports David Cohen. Still up in the air are such DC projects as the next Batman and Superman movies (how about those Louis Leterrier rumors?) and Justice League, not to mention the long-in-the-works Wonder Woman.

I finally caught up with JK Rowling's June 5 commencement address at Harvard:

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination JUNE 5, 2008

Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Here's a new photo from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due in theaters November 21.

Here's more on the final two Harry Potter movie installments and Hollywood's love affair with the sequel from CBS News:

John Hurt gives some scoop on Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

At ShoWest, Christian Bale talks about The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger:

And the NYP looks into George Lucas's move into TV with Star Wars and Clone Wars, which is also going to be an animated movie.

Warners has figured out a Harry Potter solution that is consistent with the studio's successful approach to adapting the hugely popular J.K. Rowling books: stick to the story. In the case of the final installment Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, that means splitting the long book into two films, six months apart. (And filming the kids back-to-back while they still look under 20.) The Deathly Hallows will open in November 2010, with the second part to follow in May, 2011.

Everyone is so hot and bothered about what writing phenomenon J.K. Rowling will do next that speculation has gotten out of hand.

First, despite all efforts to control the release of Deathly Hallows, at least one Muggle got an early copy, reports The Baltimore Sun:

And in Maryland, one surprised customer opened his mail to find his own copy -- delivered four days before the official worldwide release. Jon Hopkins, a 25-year-old software engineer, said he has no plans to divulge the book's secrets.

"I couldn't believe it," he said yesterday after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrived at his Davidsonville home. He had ordered the book from DeepDiscount.com on June 3. On Friday, he received an e-mail saying his order had been shipped. He never thought it would come this early.

Neither did Scholastic Inc., the Potter publisher. Scholastic has cracked down on Web sites purporting to have obtained the book, going so far as to send one a subpoena. Libraries were made to sign strict contracts to keep the book locked up until Saturday. And pallets of the books on delivery trucks have been fitted with alarms.

So the publisher wasn't happy to hear of the case of Harry Potter and the Early Delivery.

"You're kidding me," said Kyle Good, a Scholastic spokeswoman. The company has spent millions orchestrating the launch of the last Potter book -- and Internet leaks or early delivery of the novel could spoil that plan. Readers are eager to learn what happens to their beloved characters. Author J.K. Rowling has hinted that one or more of them might die, perhaps even Harry himself..

Maybe there was a mail diversion to Baltimore, because The Sun's book reviewer also got an early copy and posted the book's first review today. That website should get a healthy spike in traffic! UPDATE: And here's Michiko Kakutani in the NYT.

Meanwhile, watchdog the National Legal and Policy Center continues to pursue movie pirates far and wide, and discovered downloads of Transformers and Order of the Phoenix available on Google Video Wednesday. (Both films have been taken down.)

"Continuing to expose blockbuster films posted in advance of their release or while they’re still in theatres, NLPC hopes to spotlight Google’s ostensible oversight of intellectual property rights and its lackluster enforcement of its 'hash' technology that prevents repeated uploads of the same copyrighted material," wrote a company representative.

Meanwhile MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman is also on the warpath against pirates: “Reports on the theft of the latest installment of Harry Potter underscores that robbery of intellectual property extends far beyond the movies, to music, publishing, computer software and other creative outputs that are the foundation of our modern information economy," he wrote in a statement.

Not only has the last Harry Potter book The Deathly Hallows been leaked, the movie's already online:

One of my colleagues passed on this alert from the National Legal and Policy Center:

Yesterday afternoon, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) discovered full-length versions of the new Harry Potter movie, the latest installation of the Die Hard series, and Hairspray -- not slated for release until later this week - posted on Google Video. Following reports noting the apparently pirated movies, the films were removed, though Die Hard has since reappeared posted in two parts.

In an ongoing observation of Google Video's lackadaisical approach to screening for pirated content, the NLPC also released its second "Top 50" list today of full length movies, television shows and music concerts hosted on Google Video.

Th NLPC's full release is on the jump:

J. K. Rowling was inspired by one of her favorite university professors when she wrote the Harry Potter character Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts.

It's no surprise that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix got off to a rip-roaring start. Nora was among the throngs who bought advance tickets to a midnight show Tuesday morning.

Here are this weekend's Fandango Five – Ticket Sales (as of 7/12/07 9:00 a.m. PT):

Movie User Rating % of Fandango’s Sales

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix “Must Go” 95%

Transformers “Must Go” 2%

Ratatouille ` Must Go” 1%

Live Free or Die Hard “Must Go” <1%

License to Wed "Go” <1%

Fandango Weekly Poll (as of 7/12/07 9:00 a.m. PT)

Are you planning to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix more than once?

Yes 60%

No 40%

It was tough to take over the fifth Harry Potter from Steve Kloves. But Michael Goldenberg happily took it on and survived to tell Salon the tale.

How do you even begin transforming an 870-page book into a two-hour movie?

It's a translation process from one medium to a very different one. Ideally you want people, especially fans of the books, to walk out saying it was just like the book -- even if, when they think back on it later, they realize there were lots of differences. The challenge is in finding the best equivalent way to tell the story. My job was to stay true to the spirit of the book, rather than to the letter.

And was Rowling OK with that?

That was Jo's open request from the beginning: She just wanted to see a great movie, and gave us permission to take whatever liberties we felt we needed to take to translate the book into a movie she would love. It was clearly a big leap of faith on her part. I realize that sounds very goopy and like it's all spin, but it happens to be true.

Things are looking rosy for the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix opening this week. Here are the results of a Fandango poll of thousands of ticket-buyers about the Potter series, as of 12 noon PST Monday:

95% are planning to buy or have already pre-purchased a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; 84% have read all six of the Harry Potter books; 86% have seen each one of the first four Potter films in the theater; 86% like the darker direction in which the Harry Potter series is progressing; 80% said they would buy a ticket to a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe where he does not play Potter.

Fandango Five – Ticket Sales (as of 7/09/07 12:00 noon PST)

Movie Fandango User Rating* % of Fandango’s Sales

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix “Must Go” 84%

Transformers “Must Go” 10%

Ratatouille ` “Must Go” 2%

Live Free or Die Hard “Must Go” 1%

License to Wed "Go” 1%

Nora and I endured super-heightened Warner Bros. security Thursday night--just short of being frisked--to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New writer Michael Goldenberg, new director David Yates: it definitely felt like a new hand was at the tiller. Old friends are back: Ron and Hermione, along with protective profs Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall, not to mention Sirius Black and Rubeus Hagrid. Lord Voldemort is truly creepy, partly because he is invading Harry's dreams, which makes things more unpredictable. Imelda Staunton is terrific as Harry's new Ministry of Witches nemesis. And we will be seeing more of Black's horrible cousin, played by Helena Bonham Carter. There's a little CG creature and a very large CG giant (who are not Gollum-class), as well as some centaurs and strange flying beasts that only people who have seen death can see.

This movie is more Narnia-like, with its motley collection of folks amassing to fight the coming war against the forces of darkness. And it even brooks comparison to A Wrinkle in Time: it all comes down to fighting evil with good, doesn't it?

In short, Nora, who reads all J.K. Rowling books (the British editions only) as they come out, gives the movie an A+, while I enjoyed myself thoroughly while wishing, truthfully, that they would just get the whole thing over with. (I read the first two books, then started watching the movies.) Does Harry kill Voldemort, or the other way round? Readers of the 7th and last book, Deathly Hallows, will find out shortly, while the rest of us will sit through the movie version of the sixth book, The Half-Blood Prince, and then wait for the ultimate chapter. I'm getting impatient. And so are some of the folks who responded to this Reuters poll.

I suspect that this Harry Potter installment may experience a slight boxoffice dip. But the one I'd be worried about, if I were Warners, is the next one. Yates will be back; he did just fine with Order of the Phoenix. I have no problem with the darker, scarier Potter. That's where it has to go. But in movie terms, it does feel like we're stretching this out over a very long haul. (The reviews have stretched out too; as soon as London broke with an early review, so did everyone else.)

Nora is not ga-ga over Daniel Radcliffe. She prefers Rupert Grint, and can't wait for him to get romantically involved with Emma Watson. Radcliffe does kiss a girl in this one, and MTV.com asked him about it.

UPDATE: J.K. Rowling wept into her champagne the night she finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Here's The Independent profile.

I finally have a Harry Potter screening invite. Here's an early review from the London Times out of the Tokyo premiere:

The film itself is a solid, occasionally spectacular, wizarding romp which struggles unsuccessfully to give us the thrills and fun we have not already had in previous instalments. It is far crueler than its predecessors and begins to introduce properly the idea that we are no longer in an amusing magical playground, but are en route to an epic confrontation with real victims.

UPDATE: Here's Variety's review. Stephen Schaefer saw the film in London.

David Yates, director of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will do the sixth installment as well, reports scifiwire:

"I am doing Half-Blood Prince, and I'm doing it because I love the world, I love the characters," the BAFTA-winning director said in an interview. "I think I have more business with this world and these characters."

Here's the new Harry Potter trailer. Four down, this is the fifth: they haven't faltered yet. And David Yates (The Girl in the Cafe, State of Play) is a terrific director. Expected to stick close to the JK Rowling novel, this one, which opens July 13, does look darker still--which makes sense as its global fans grow up with the stars. This time, Potter falls for Cho Chang (Katie Leung). Helena Bonham Carter, Imelda Staunton and Ralph Fiennes (in the poster) co-star.