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