Muggles have something to be thankful for next year.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth movie based on J.K. Rowling's hugely popular fantasy series, will hit theaters just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 21, 2008, Warner Bros. has announced.
No word yet on a director or any casting news, but presumably the core players in the Potter films, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, will return as, respectively, Harry, Ron and Hermione.
Half-Blood Prince will stakes out the traditional Thanksgiving window that the British wiz kid has dominated since he first cast his spell on the big screen in 2001's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The only exceptions to the Tukey Day release strategy have been the third chapter, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which bowed in June 2004, and the upcoming fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, due out July 13, 2007.
The holiday season has proven especially lucrative for Harry and pals. Sorcerer's Stone earned a Gringott-sized $317 million domestically, its follow-up, 2002's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, hauled in $261 million in North American ticket sales, while Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire snagged $289 million domestically. That's a combined $867 million in the U.S. and Canada alone.
The lone summer opening was less successful. Prisoner of Azkaban is the lowest grossing Potter franchise, conjuring up $249 million domestically.
The 672-page Half-Blood Prince arrived on shelves last summer and sold a whopping 6.9 million copies its first day in U.S. bookstores. The story, which picks up with Harry in his sixth year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, focuses on the crisis Lord Voldemort and his followers pose as they challenge the authority of the Ministry of Magic. At the same time,Harry struggles to determine the identity of the half-blood prince, the mysterious owner of a book of magic that aids him as he discovers more details about You-Know-Who's dark past.
With news of Half-Blood Prince's opening date, other studios are also scrambling to nail down their holiday '08 slates.
They should be right... you know, it's not many who get to participate in something as extrodinary as this movie series... if it were me, I'd see it through to the end, lest I'm hated by the entire world.
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
Hope so. Wonder if Rowling gives them a cut of the merchandising. Being the face of a literary character has to worth a lot.
The more I think about it, the more I am glad I have never paid to see one of these movies. A stipulation Rowling has is that only British actors can be in these movies. That's lame. I say the next Spiderman movie only have American actors. Or any other blockbusters. And at the end all the main characters wizz on the Union Jack.
But that is a lot of movies. I am surprised they have done it for this long. They are filming the 5th one right now? Not too many film franchises feature the same actor for five movies, much less an ensemble, much less kids maturing on camera.
They use 30 year olds to play teenagers in American movies, why can't the Brits do the same thing? It's remarkable what the right make up and a tad of special effects can do. The recent X-Men movie had Xavier and Magnito 10 or 15 years younger through the use of computer generation. I mean, if they do get desperate.
If I remember correctly, they were digitally removing pimples in the last movie, right?
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
Don't know about the pimples. And I don't have a problem with older kids playing younger kids. I am just surprised they're sticking around for 5 movies and now a possible 6th? That's unheard of. I really don't see the whole core cast going all 7.
It is quite unheard of, but I think everyone's greatful that all the characters (except Dumbledore) haven't varied from movie to movie. When I heard the first movie was being made I was kind've worried they'd get different actors to play them and different directors and smaller budgets, and it'd end up like the freakin Home Alone series
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
Well one thing that bugs me is that they changed Tom the barman from a normal looking man to some bald hunchback, then they took Professor Flitwick who was an old creepy dude and made him some younger doofus. Those things were very noticeable.
Yes Grant, they did digitally remove the pimples in the last movie.
08-08-2006 09:29 PM
