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Check It: The Latest Harry Potter Trailer!

BuzzSugar — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:30:03 -0800

Another month, another trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This one is just as mesmerizing as the last and includes some new tidbits (and more Ron Weasley!). Just like the other Potter movies, Half-Blood Prince looks like it will be visually stunning. I'm constantly amazed at the beautiful, fantastical world created for us in these films and this one is no exception.

To enjoy the new trailer, just read more.

YouTube videos don't do this trailer justice, really, so for some other viewing options, click here.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Awesome Teaser For Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

BuzzSugar — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:00:26 -0700

"You're the chosen one, Harry."

This new international teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince makes it even more of a bummer that the release date got bumped from November to July '09. The trailer makes the movie look exciting and dramatic and funny and darkly beautiful.

It's obviously a must-watch for any Potter fan, so read more.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Buzz News Roundup, 9/8

BuzzSugar — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:30:07 -0700

J.K. Rowling has won her copyright infringement lawsuit against a fan who wanted to publish a Harry Potter encyclopedia. - AP
Spike Lee is working on a sequel to Inside Man. - Hollywood Reporter
24 is shutting down production for two weeks to rewrite scripts and figure out the end to the next season. - Zap2it
The Stand Up to Cancer telethon and associated fundraising efforts made $100 million for cancer research. - TV Guide
The Darren Aronofsky film The Wrestler sparked an all-night bidding war at the Toronto International Film Festival. - Variety
Musicians including Heart and Jackson Browne don't want Republican candidates using their songs to campaign. - CitizenSugar
NBC is putting together a new Muppets special, Letters to Santa: A Muppet Christmas. - Reuters
Jayma Mays has been cast as the lead in the Fox pilot Glee, which might be an American Idol companion this Spring. - Hollywood Reporter
Jessica Alba has been cast in a "modern-day fable" called An Invisible Sign of My Own, which was initially supposed to star America Ferrera. - Variety

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J.K. Rowling to Publish Tales of Beedle for Charity

BuzzSugar — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:30:07 -0700

More Harry Potter-related news, you say? Yes! It's been an exciting week for the world that J.K. Rowling created, as we got the first substantial taste of the next movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (if you haven't watched this trailer, you should do so here!). Now there's news that Rowling's book The Tales of Beedle the Bard will be available to the public as of Dec. 4, 2008.

She's auctioned off one of her handwritten versions of the book, and mass-produced copies will be available come December. Amazon is also producing "up to 100,000 special-edition copies aimed at replicating the look and feel of the seven original jewel-encrusted tomes."

Rowling said in a statement:

The new edition will include the Tales themselves, translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger, and with illustrations by me, but also notes by Professor Albus Dumbledore, which appear by generous permission of the Hogwarts Headmasters' Archive.

All net proceeds will be donated to the Children's High Level Group, Rowling's charity that "aims to improve life for children in institutional homes in Europe."

Ready to pre-order your copy?

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J.K. Rowling vs. Mega-Fan Lexicon Guy: Who's in the Right?

BuzzSugar — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:31:53 -0700

The legal battle between J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter uber-fan Steven Vander Ark is getting stickier. All day yesterday I kept running into headlines about the 50-year-old Michigan fan "breaking down in tears" when he was called to the stand in the copyright infringement case.

Since 2000, Vander Ark has been putting together an online encyclopedia "largely made up of lists of characters, spells and creatures" from the Harry Potter books. However, now that a publisher wants to put out a book version of the Lexicon - which does contain passages taken word for word from Rowling's books - Rowling is crying foul, calling it "wholesale theft" of her work. She has also expressed intentions to publish her own Potter encyclopedia and claims Vander Ark's book would spoil this plan.

Rowling has said the whole case is draining her creativity. Vander Ark is clearly distressed at having to face off in court against the author he most adores. It's a sad situation, but do you think it's even necessary? Is Rowling overreacting? Or should Vander Ark just back down?

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It's Official: Final Harry Potter Book to Be Two Movies

BuzzSugar — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:30:29 -0700

It was a rumor before, and now it's confirmed: the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is to be made into two separate films: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The films are set to be released in November 2010 and May 2011.

The movies will be shot back-to-back and will be directed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince director David Yates.

Apparently, "adapting the novel would have resulted in truncating large swaths of it or making an extra-long feature in order to fit everything in. The studio found itself in a situation similar to Quentin Tarantino with Kill Bill, where splitting one long movie in two worked best creatively." Also, you know, Potter movies are a ginormous money-makers for Warner Brothers so . . . there's that.

What do you think about this news? And should the two movies have different titles than simply Part 1 and Part 2? What would you title them?

Buzz News Roundup, 2/29

BuzzSugar — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:30:20 -0800

Papers filed in J.K. Rowling's lawsuit indicate she is not happy about one Harry Potter fan's plan to publish an unauthorized reference work, the Associated Press reports. Rowling has previously praised the fan site, Harry Potter Lexicon, on which the book is based.
Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has talked about casting a nonblack actor to play Obama on the show with the Washington Post.
OneRepublic and Fabolous are teaming up to tour college campuses this spring, Billboard reports.
Zap2it has news that the next installment of Indiana Jones might make its debut in France at the Cannes Film Festival.
NBC is releasing a Heroes soundtrack on March 18 featuring several exclusive new singles; details about which artists are included are at The Futon Critic.
The New York Times reports that Time Warner has decided New Line Cinema will become a unit of Warner Brothers and will no longer operate independently. This will not affect the release of New Line's Sex and the City this Spring nor beginning work on The Hobbit.
The Spiderwick Chronicles star Freddie Highmore has been signed for the title role in the upcoming CG-animated motion picture AstroBoy, ComingSoon reports.
The director and star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall will team up with producer Judd Apatow for an upcoming comedy called Five-Year Engagement, Variety reports. Director Nick Stoller says of the movie, "It's definitely an extension of our desire to explore the depth of human misery." Hilarious!

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Last Harry Potter Book May Be Made Into Two Movies

BuzzSugar — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:30:03 -0800

It's nothing officially official yet, but word from UK source The Mail on Sunday is that the seventh and last Harry Potter book will turn into two movies instead of one. While the obvious reason for this would be that Warner Bros. stands to make even more gazillions of dollars with a Harry Potter 7 and a Harry Potter 8, the article claims that "sources insist the reason behind the two-movie plan is artistic rather than financial." Here's more:

A film source said: "There's so much to fit that the view is the last movie should be in two halves. There is a huge battle when Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe, takes on Voldemort that needs to be done really well." And Ms. Rowling points out on her website: "It is simply impossible to incorporate every storyline into a film under four hours long."

Damn straight! The books always pack in way more than what ends up in the movies, so this seems like the only satisfying way to complete the film series. Besides, I suppose if you're going to go out with a bang, you may as well make two big bangs, right? What do you think about two final Harry Potter movies?

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Dumbledore: Gay. Discuss.

BuzzSugar — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:02:40 -0700

As many of you hard-core Harry Potter fans probably already know, J.K. Rowling has revealed that the character of Dumbledore is gay and that Dumbledore had been in love with Grindelwald. At her appearance at Carnegie Hall on Friday night, the last stop on her U.S. tour, a young fan asked Rowling if Dumbledore finds "true love." This is when Rowling outed her character.

"Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down." Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy."

This news has caused waves of mixed reactions, though many people seem delighted:

"Jo Rowling calling any Harry Potter character gay would make wonderful strides in tolerance toward homosexuality," Melissa Anelli, Webmaster of the fan site TheLeakyCauldron, told The Associated Press. "By dubbing someone so respected, so talented and so kind, as someone who just happens to be also homosexual, she's reinforcing the idea that a person's gayness is not something of which they should be ashamed."

Rowling, however, speculates that some folks may not be too pleased to hear this news, referencing Christian groups that have already expressed displeasure with the series for its inclusion of witchcraft. Rowling mused that these same people may not be happy with this new information.

Time to weigh in, Potter fans: Did you suspect this the whole time? Does this change anything, or doesn't this news matter to you?

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Variety's Women's Impact Report: J.K. Rowling

BuzzSugar — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 08:30:00 -0700

Every year, Variety issues their Women's Impact Report in which they highlight women in the entertainment industry that they think deserve some praise. From industry executives (like United Artists bigwig Paula Wagner) to household names (like Angelina Jolie), the list spotlights some strong, smart, intriguing ladies.

For the next few Wednesdays I'll focus on some of the women who I find particularly noteworthy as well. I've already sung the praises of filmmaker Adrienne Shelly and Tina Fey, and today I'm turning my attention to one of the world's most beloved authors: J.K. Rowling.

Rowling is responsible for bringing Harry Potter into the world, which turned out not only to have a far-reaching effect on readers of all ages, but also proved financially lucrative.

As her Variety profile points out:

J.K. Rowling's ability to astound in the marketplace has become a given. Barnes & Noble reported pre-orders for the new book at 1.2 million in the U.S., the largest in the chain's history. In its first 24 hours on sale, 8.3 million copies were purchased, topping the previous record (also held by Rowling).

The author already had sold more than 325 million books worldwide and is, according to Forbes magazine, one of just five self-made female billionaires - and the first billionaire author.

Getting to this place of success, however, is truly an inspiring story. To find out what I mean, read more

As a single mother on welfare, Rowling wrote her first novel whenever she could get her small daughter, Jessica, to sleep. She obtained a literary agent in 1995 who sent the manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to twelve publishing houses, all of whom rejected it. After a year, a small publisher decided to print a run of 1,000 copies of the book, and then in 1998 Scholastic distributed it in the U.S. with the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. From there, everything started to snowball - what with all the awards and outstanding sales and films. Now, of course, the the seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter series has been printed and devoured by obsessed fans everywhere, and Rowling is quite a wealthy lady.

The end of Harry Potter is certainly not the end of J.K. Rowling, however. Rowling told Variety what's next on her agenda: "A thank-you tour in October, where she'll visit schools in New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans; and a new children's book, a 'political fairy story' for readers younger than her usual Harry Potter fans."

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