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It's Harry Potter and a film of two halves: the final movie will be released in two parts

Crew working on the sixth Potter film, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, have been told J.K. Rowling's seventh novel, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, will be released in two halves.

For film-makers Warner Bros, whose first five Potter films have made £2.5billion in box office receipts – more than any other movie series – it could mean a £500million bonus in ticket sales.

But sources insist the reason behind the two-movie plan is artistic rather than financial.

The books got progressively longer – the first, the Philosopher's Stone, had 223 pages while Deathly Hallows has 776 – and fans have complained chunks of later novels have been left out of films.

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."

At Warner Bros, who are rumoured to be thinking of Oscars and a big-name director such as Steven Spielberg for the final film, a spokesman said:

"People are discussing all possibilities."

This is good news IMHO. I wonder how long it'll be until we find out whether it's true or not?

I'd think making Half Blood Prince closer to 3 hours rather than 2 would serve the story better, too.
(Didn't Order of the Phoenix teach them about leaving out too much?)

I agree with you Dez.....for Harry Potter fans, who know every subplot, it's hard to see the movie leave out parts of the book you really enjoyed.

Non-readers won't notice. But for them, a 4 hour movie would be really looooong.

I watched a little bit of the first movie last night....they were babies!!!

Wonder if they'll have the final scene at the train station???

It's disappointing for readers, but I think it's even harder on non-readers when they cut out too much. I first saw Order of the Phoenix with a non-reader friend, and she had no idea what was going on through most of the movie.

I love the movies, but don't expect to see every single plot point in them. That said, I've been very happy that the movies haven't strayed too far from the books, and I think that either 3 hours or 2 separate movies would be an improvement.

BTW, if you are a big HP fan like me, you should definitely listen to the audiotapes of the books. Jim Dale is an amazing storyteller! I look forward to my commute in the mornings now.

Tina

Making the final movie into 2 would be great. Its by far the best of the series and it needs to be done justice! Specially the battle at Hogwarts and the final battle with Voldermort and Harry!

I'm not against the idea, but they've been saying this since the 3rd movie, and it has never happened....

KeetAtHeart wrote:BTW, if you are a big HP fan like me, you should definitely listen to the audiotapes of the books. Jim Dale is an amazing storyteller! I look forward to my commute in the mornings now.

I agree Tina.
I have all 7 books on CD and really enjoy Jim Dale, he brings the characters to life better than I can.
My son & I listened while we followed along in the books (he's not quite old enough to read big books like that by himself, and I couldn't have done them justice.)

BTW, he's also the narrator on the TV show "Pushing Daisies".

Sounds good to me. Anything to prolong our interest in HP!!

Love the books on CD too. At least we don't have to pronounce

HER MY OH KNEE!!

Quote for J. K. Rowling site:
How do you pronounce 'Hermione?'
Her (as in 'her brain is bigger than everyone else's') + my (as in 'my brain isn't as big as that') + oh (as in 'oh, for a brain that size') + knee (as in 'I've bruised my knee').

This used to be the most frequently asked question of all, but it has become less so since I cunningly had Hermione tell Krum how to pronounce her name in 'Goblet of Fire'.



I still haven't finished the 7th book.
Guess that is next on my list of TO-DOs!

Yeah...trying to fit *any* of the last four books into a two hour movie is like trying to cram twenty pounds of potatoes into a ten pound sack.

OTOH, they'd have to film both parts of _Deathly Hallows_ at the same time, in order to not have the actors look unbelievably old to play their characters. As it is, Daniel Radcliffe will probably be in his twenties by the time filming ends.

Quote for J. K. Rowling site:
How do you pronounce 'Hermione?'
Her (as in 'her brain is bigger than everyone else's') + my (as in 'my brain isn't as big as that') + oh (as in 'oh, for a brain that size') + knee (as in 'I've bruised my knee').

This used to be the most frequently asked question of all, but it has become less so since I cunningly had Hermione tell Krum how to pronounce her name in 'Goblet of Fire'

.

That's funny.

TropicalTroubador wrote:OTOH, they'd have to film both parts of _Deathly Hallows_ at the same time,[...].

I'm sure they'd film it all at once, so they could edit it properly.

Update today from Empire Magazine:

About Those Harry Potter Rumours
Will book seven become two movies?

You may have seen yesterday that The Mail On Sunday reported that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be split into two movies (we'll not discuss why you were reading The Mail). This would make potential sense, since the final book in the Potter series is by far the most plot-dense and fans would want to see proper time given to the fates of all characters. But forgive us if we don't believe them. When we spoke to Warner Bros they told us that "no decision has been made about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

One reason that makes perfect sense is that there isn't a script in existence, Empire has had confirmed. Steve Kloves, who will write the last in the series, hasn't starting writing the script yet, since the WGA strike prevents him from doing so. Without a working script, The Mail On Sunday's assertion that the decision to make two films was for "artistic, rather than financial, reason" doesn't hold water. How can you assess what is best, artistically speaking, for a script that doesn't exist yet? And the crew would certainly not be told that they'd be shooting two films back-to-back at this stage (the last movie's not set to shoot until February 2009). None of our sources back up the Mail's rumour and all say that the decision is a way off.

We're in two minds about whether Deathly Hallows should be one or two movies. On the one hand, you'd have to cut a lot to fit the whole tale properly in to 150 minutes – although you could chop swathes of the section where Harry, Ron and Hermione head into the woods. On the other hand, two movies could stretch the material a little thinly. With the right director we can see it working. But, whatever finally happens, please know that the question of how many movies Deathly Hallows becomes is not one anybody, including the film's makers, currently knows the answer to.