Thompson On Hollywood

Sequels: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Indy 4, Dark Knight

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.

Harry Potter Sees Double

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.

Rowling Not Writing Mystery

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

Harry Potter Update: First Deathly Hallows Review

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.

Harry Potter: It's on Google Video, Along with Hairspray

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:

Harry Potter: Meet Rowling's Model for Dumbledore

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

Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix Ticket Stats

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%

Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix Writer Goldenberg Talks

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.

Harry Potter: Fans Buying Order of the Phoenix Tickets, Deathly Hallows Books

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%

Harry Potter Watch: Order of the Phoenix Review, Rowling Talks

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.

Harry Potter Watch: Order of the Phoenix Debuts in Japan; Early Review

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.

Yates Commits to Sixth Potter

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."

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Trailer

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.