Warner Bros. has conjured up some
Hollywood magic for the final installment of the wildly popular
"Harry Potter" movies, splitting the seventh and final book
into two films, the movie studio said on Thursday.
Part one of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will
debut in late 2010 and be followed months later by part two.
"We feel that the best way to do the book, and its many
fans, justice is to expand the screen adaptation of 'Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows' and release the film in two
parts," Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Bros. Pictures Group,
said in a statement.
The first five films in the series have been huge hits with
a total global box office nearing $4.5 billion. The sixth movie
is now being filmed.
The movies are based on British author J.K. Rowling's
best-selling fantasy novels about the adventures of boy wizard
Harry Potter and his friends as they grow from kids into
teenagers at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final book in Rowling's
series, was published last July to huge fanfare, selling some
11.5 million copies in its first 10 days in the United States.
But the final volume is a long saga at more than 750 pages,
and it is filled with many twists and turns as Harry and his
friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley wrap up their story
lines. Harry faces -- once and for all times -- the dark Lord
Voldemort who murdered his parents.
Because of the many adventures in "Deathly Hallows,"
Rowling, the movies' producers and Warner Bros. all agreed that
two movies were necessary to truly tell the end story.
"'The Deathly Hallows' is so rich, the story so dense and
there is so much that is resolved that after discussing it with
Jo, we came to the conclusion that the two parts were needed to
do it justice," said producer David Heyman, who first took the
project to Warner Bros. in 1997.
The books and movies also have been a huge money maker
beyond theater box offices and DVDs. They have spawned products
from toys to T-shirts to a planned theme park.
By some estimates, "Harry Potter" represents a $20 billion
business, so an eighth film will likely only expand the
enterprise.
Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry, and his co-stars Emma
Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grint (Ron) are now filming the
sixth movie -- "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." All
three have said they would appear in "Deathly Hallows."
Warner Bros. is a unit of media giant Time Warner Inc.
(Editing by Jill Serjeant and John O'Callaghan)
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