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Poring Over Harry Potter News (While Hiding from Spoilers)
July 14, 2009
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Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley and Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter in Warner Bros. Pictures' "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." (Photo by Jaap Buitendijk)
Tonight’s the big night for Harry Potter fans — if you’re up for staying out until 3 a.m. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the penultimate Harry Potter film, technically opens tomorrow, but as it usually goes with geek-friendly blockbusters, many theaters are opening their doors to fans for midnight showings tonight. Early reviews — which I’ve barely skimmed, since I like being surprised — are largely positive, and according to i09, advance ticket sales are going so hugely that the movie might end up with the biggest U.S. opening ever.
I love midnight openings … the crowds are so big, so excited and so, so quiet while the movie’s playing. Sadly, I can’t make it this time around since I’ve learned over the last three weeks that being on crutches is flat-out exhausting. So while I’m arduously avoiding the vast quantities of clips that have made their way to the Web over the last few weeks (again, I’ve read teh books, but I like surprises) I am gleefully reading all the ancillary Harry Potter news I can get my hands on.
First up, yet another tip from TechStuff’s Jonathan Strickland: Universal Orlando is working on a new attraction called “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.” I was vaguely aware of this before, but my brain had latched onto it more as “Universal is building a Harry Potter ride.” But as the Orlando Sentinel tells it, it’s more like a park within a park. (As I said to Jonathan after reading the article … TWENTY ACRES???) I guess now we all know where I’ll be going on vacation sometime in 2010.
Here’s a roundup of some of the other headlines I’ve been poring over:
- The cast is hard at work on parts one and two of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” due out in 2010 and 2011. And it’s already time to start thinking about what they’ll do when its all over. SciFi Wire has talked to some of them.
- Speaking of endings, i09 has been doing some digging about how the final film will address the very, very end of the story. So don’t read it if you haven’t read the book and don’t want to know about the very, very end.
- The X-Change Files, a new blog from the National Academy of Sciences, talks a little about the magic in Harry Potter as “teaching moments” for science.
Fandom roll-call … who is headed to the movies tonight?
More on Harry Potter at HowStuffWorks.com:
How Harry Potter’s Wand Works
Inside “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”
Battling Blockbusters: Fighting Against Superman
Comments
11 Responses to “Poring Over Harry Potter News (While Hiding from Spoilers)”
Tracy V. Wilson says: Pour vs. pore!
Affect vs. effect!
Comprise vs. compose!
I love them all.
karl says: “Spoilers”? How can there be spoilers if you have already read the books?
Tracy V. Wilson says: Because books aren’t movies, and sometimes movies have to step away from books so they can offer something that’s really fresh and exciting rather than becoming a step-by-step visual representation of the books, as though the movie were an 80s-era filmstrip. For the most part, I don’t want to know what the departures are ahead of time or what type of visual coolness the filmmakers have up their collective sleeves. I’d rather watch the movie as it unfolds and be surprised by it.
Really, feeling that way is a change for me. When the “Lord of the Rings” movies were in production, I wanted to know everything … what they’d changed, what they’d left out, what kind of visual effects were behind this or that. I even co-maintained a LotR news blog for a couple of years. But eventually I started to feel like knowing all that stuff ahead of time was keeping me from feeling really immersed in the films once they hit the screen. I had so many bits and pieces in my brain already that I couldn’t just sit there and take it all in.
Okay….you’ve got me in a “maybe I’ll go to a midnight showing” mood. I’m forty five and I can’t recall ever doing that before…hmmmm. 
Hope You feel better soon!
I was thinking about going to a midnight showing…but then realized I’d have to take a nap in order to do that. Getting older sux.
[...] 15, 2009 In response to yesterday’s Harry Potter post, commenter Karl said, “‘Spoilers’? How can there be spoilers if you have already [...]
I’m not entirely sure but I’ve heard that the seventh book will be split into two movies. (*goes to research this*)…I’m pretty sure it’s legitimate (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-potter13mar13,0,7162166.story)
Darn, what I said in my above post was mentioned already, apologies.
Although, to add a personal response…I went to a midnight showing and the first showtime was sold out before the ticket stands opened to sell tickets! There was a line to the theater and around the corner, and the best part? Everyone had pre-ordered tickets, and some had even dressed up.
Good article. Especially nice that you used the word “poring” as opposed to “pouring” which I see so often these days, and which makes no sense!