Potter box office at 345 mln pounds

Global box office sales for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the latest film about the boy wizard, have reached $700 million (345 million pound), media company Time Warner said on Wednesday.

"We're looking for a very big year for Warner and New Line," Time Warner Chief Executive Richard Parsons said of the company's two film studios. The Harry Potter film was released by Warner Bros.

Parsons also said he expects film division results in the second half will rise "strongly" from a year before.

ROWLING EXPLAINS CHANGING LAST WORD IN HARRY POTTER

Spoiler alert: If you haven't finished "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," you may not want to read any further.

It was widely reported that the last word of the final Harry Potter book was "scar" and for years Rowling said that was true.

In the epilogue, which is set19 years after the defeat of Voldemort, Rowling paints a picture of Harry standing on platform 9 3/4, his nearest and dearest surrounding him. In her original draft, the last line was “Only those who he loved could see the lightening scar,’” ….or “something like” that, she told Meredith Vieira in an exclusive interview.

Ultimately, Rowling felt that line was too ambiguous, begging the question about whether the scar was still there or not. She said wanted a more concrete statement that Harry had won; Voldemort had been defeated. The scar was still there, but now it was only a scar.

“I wanted to say it’s over. It’s done.”

Rowling changed the last line to: “All was well.”

“That felt right,” she said.



More from Meredith Vieira's interview with J.K. Rowling:

Rowling's big regret: Never told mom about Harry
Finished 'Potter'? Rowling tells what happens next
Stop your sobbing! More Potter to come
Rowling's mind games with Daniel Radcliffe
Rowling brings Meredith Vieira to tears
Full Harry Potter coverage

Harry Potter buzz explodes with book release

But record demand for 7th Rowling book not a magic potion for profit

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Move over, iPhone -- Harry Potter is the new king of hype.
In an event that likely eclipsed the hyped launch of Apple's (AAPL : Apple Inc
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AAPL143.75, +3.75, +2.7%) iPhone, hundreds of thousands again took to the streets around the world Friday night to snap up copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last in the seven-book series by J.K. Rowling.
The fictional boy wizard -- who launched an unprecedented number of marketing opportunities and five blockbuster movies so far-- got his final chapter in the struggle between good and evil when the book went on sale at 12:01 a.m.
Buzz surrounding the book had been so intense that several photographs of leaked pages already appeared on the Internet before the release date. The New York Times and Baltimore Sun also published early reviews of the books Thursday, claiming the novels were purchased legally.
A small percentage of books also were shipped to customers earlier this week, prompting U.S. publisher Scholastic Corp. (SCHL : Scholastic Corp
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SCHL33.80, -0.41, -1.2%) to take legal action. See full story.
But the threat of spoilers didn't ruin the party. Advance orders for the latest book broke records and release celebrations were held around the world.
"We expect the largest crowd in history to be at our stores Friday night at the stroke of midnight," said Barnes & Noble Chief Executive Stephen Riggio in an interview.
Potter parties
Several companies in New York City spent millions on marketing campaigns and parties for the book's midnight release.
Scholastic transformed the city block in front of their flagship Soho store into Harry Potter Place. The publisher featured attractions from the books, such as the Knight Bus and Whomping Willow, along with face painting, jugglers and stilt-walkers. Inside the store, children participated in wand making, while company executives who helped with the book's publishing and others attended a party in the VIP section on the second floor.
Author Salmon Rushdie arrived at the Scholastic Store in the early evening with his 10-year-old son Milan in anticipation of the final book.
"My son is the Harry Potter expert," Rushdie said. "He's so excited that he's made me promise not to cheat by looking at the end."
Rushdie added that because of his son, he also is a fan of the Harry Potter books and is happy with its frenzied launch. "If you're a writer, you can only celebrate that. I can't imagine the last time that so much [hype] was generated by a book and not a TV series or movie."
Outside the Scholastic Store, Justin Gray, 26, of New York, sat in line reading the sixth Harry Potter book for the fifth time. Gray got to the store after work at 5 p.m., and was ready to for the long haul until midnight.
"I've been waiting on this book for eight years," Gray said. "I don't want to wait another 30 minutes to get it."
Demand 'unprecedented'
Scholastic expects to break both printing and sales records with the seventh book. The company said it has printed 12 million copies in the U.S., surpassing records held by the sixth book, which had a first-print run of 10.8 million in 2005. More than 6.9 million copies of the book were sold in the first 24 hours.
By comparison, "a very large first printing for a children's book would be 50,000," said Maureen O'Connell, chief financial officer for Scholastic. "This is unprecedented."
In years that the books are published, Harry Potter accounts for between 8% and 10% of Scholastic's $2 billion in revenues, O'Connell said. In years without a new book, sales account for less than 1% of revenues, she said.
But while Harry Potter creates significant business for its U.S. publisher, the impact on a retail chain's bottom line is "hard to quantify," said William Armstrong, an industry analyst with C.L. King and Associates.
Retail stores are deeply discounting the book between 40% and 50%, hoping to convert the large spike in customer traffic into sales of other higher-margin items.
But the increase in hype and number of printings has meant that "with more recent Harry Potters, the number of days when you have a huge rush has been compressed, which is not favorable to them," Armstrong said.
'Deathly' discounts
Meanwhile, three hundred people lined up early outside the Borders store at Columbus Circle for the Grand Hallows Ball. The event, held at the Time Warner Center, included live performances by alternative band Lifehouse and vocalist Colbie Caillat. The ball was bathed in orange light, and magicians, palm readers, ice sculptures and floral displays were on hand.
In the second-quarter of 2005, Borders Group Inc. (BGP : Borders Group, Inc
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BGP18.45, -0.20, -1.1%) said that same-store sales in its book category increased by 6%, four points of which stemmed from sales of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."
But those swift sales don't necessarily spell profits for retailers. Borders, for one, said its gross margins in the period when the last Harry book was published declined because steep discounting on the book ate into its profits.
Borders pre-sold 1.5 million copies of "Hallows" in just its U.S. stores, said President and Chief Executive George Jones in an interview at the party. That handily surpassed first-day sales of the sixth book, which including preorders totaled 850,000.

Harry Potter book leaks on to internet

Despite a massive security operation, the final book of the Harry Potter series has been leaked online three days before its worldwide release.

Neil Blair, a lawyer for the author JK Rowling, confirmed today that some genuine material from the seventh Harry Potter book had been posted on the internet - but said that there was also much bogus content circulating.

It is the first time that material from any of the hugely successful boy wizard books has leaked onto the internet before publication. The book itself goes on sale in bookstores around the world on Friday at midnight, before when all copies are supposed to be closely guarded.

For the past two days, photographs of what are claimed to be pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows have appeared on a number of file-sharing websites.

One set of images purports to show each of the 36 chapters - and a seven-page epilogue - from a 759-page version thought to be the American edition, published by Scholastic.

According to people who have read that version, several characters meet their end, and others get married. Rowling herself has revealed only that two major characters die.

In one of the photos, still available on several sites, a hand is seen holding the book open at the bottom of each double-page spread as it is photographed above a patch of tight-knit carpet.

Another, which purports to be the opening of Chapter 23, entitled 'Malfoy Manor', shows the first sentence as starting: "Harry looked around at the other two..."

A 33-year-old Canadian man who claims to have downloaded hundreds of the book's pages from one of the so-called 'Torrent' sites, told a Canadian news service : "What some guy did was take pictures of it, 500 little files, each with a picture of a page. Someone took the trouble to do that."

Today, a search for 'Harry Potter Hallows' on one of the largest so-called 'Torrent' sites, isoHunt, revealed 61 hits, many of which claimed to be the 'Full Book'.

In the past, several 'spoiler' attempts claim to have released plot details prior to a book's publication, but a manuscript itself has never been procured and posted online.

A spokeswoman for Bloomsbury, the book's UK publisher, would not confirm or deny today that the leaked version was the real thing, but said that "vast quantities" of material purporting to be the book were circulating.

"People are being very clever putting stuff online. There are many different versions and it's easy to use Photoshop [photo editing software] to make something look very real. We're asking people not to spoil the book for fans," she said. "We're getting phone calls from people in tears saying: 'I don't want to find out what happens.'"

A spokesman for Scholastic, the book's US publisher, said: "There's so much out there that is confusing for fans. Our lawyers are trying to keep down the amount of spoiler traffic and clear it from places where fans might be reading."

Harry Potter fan sites such as theleakycauldron.org, and mugglenet.com have vowed to keep spoiler material off their pages.

William Hill, the bookmaker, said today that it had stopped taking all bets on who would die in the book because it could no longer be sure punters had not already read the final chapters.

"Up until now the list of insiders was probably less than 10, but now that's obviously no longer the case," a spokesman for the firm said.

Meanwhile in internet forums, a war of words raged as to whether the version that had been posted was genuine.

"Yes its real, yes it works, yes its in a pdf. Have fun," one comment on thepiratebay.org read.

Another user wasn't so sure: "I'm going to have the burst the bubble on this being real. I was positive it was, until I found this on page 156: "Auntie Muriel, who seemed to be enjoying herself *hugely*, snapped her fingers for more champagne." To my knowledge, the word 'hugely' does not exist. Surely, a book as anticipated as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would have been edited multiple times."

"Hugely" is a rather common British expression," a rebuttal came back. "Nothing strange about it."

More than two million copies of the Deathly Hallows have been pre-ordered on Amazon, and the Royal Mail has said it expects to deliver 600,000 books on release day - about one for every 100 people in the UK.

Phoenix mill mayhem

Hello again, Harry Potter. Even as millions of readers around the world are giddily anticipating the release, on July 21, of the final volume of J.K.Rowling's bonanza-sellers, here's the fifth installment of the formidable film franchise.

David Yates, a veteran of British TV, makes his directorial movie debut with the $200 million magic-and-mayhem adventure. Taking over from Mike Newell, The Goblet of Fire helmer who declined to return, he displays more of the visual panache of the previous Potter-fare.

Although the labyrinths of the plot are a tad difficult to traverse, both the eyes and the senses are seduced by the sophisticated special effects and wondrous set design.

Faced with the Herculean task of adapting the hefty 890 page novel, scriptwriter Michael Goldenberg has excised plenty of extraneous material, narrowing the focus on the overtly political aspects of the story. Incidentally, at 138 minutes, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the shortest film in the series.

So what's the news from Hogwarts this time around? Returning for his fifth semester at the school of witchcraft and wizardry, the teenage Harry (Radcliffe) finds his credibility compromised when the powers-that-be at the Ministry of Magic refute his claim regarding the return of their arch-nemesis (Ralph Fiennes, sinister as ever).

It's now up to our bespectacled hero and his best buddies (Rupert Grint-Watson) to defend the titular order against the rampaging evildoers. The trio with brio also has to contend with the school's new dictatorial Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher (Imelda Staunton). And in the midst of the malarkey, Harry even gets his first proper kiss from one of his classmates.

Rabid Potterphiles are bound to quibble about the missing Quidditch action. Also, kids, especially those under 10, may find the mood a bit too grim for comfort.

Reliable regulars, including Michael Gambon as the benign headmaster, Alan Rickman as Hogwart's resident occultist and Gary Oldman as Harry's heroic godfather, reprise their roles with aplomb. While Rupert Grint and Emma Watson barely make an impact in severely curtailed roles, Daniel Radcliffe has never been this assured before. However, the thunder is stolen by Imelda Staunton. Attired in shocking pink from head to toe, the Oscar-nominee from Vera Drake, has a blast.

Go ahead, make your multiplex matinee.

Potter waves his wand at Tussauds!

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who turns 18 later this month, has become the youngest person to be immortalised in wax at Madame Tussauds museum.

Radcliffe's statue shows that the museum has tried to distance him from the character of Potter. He is sporting a simple suit rather than the clothes and the wand of a magician.

His wax figure will stand alongside Hollywood legends Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, contactmusic.com website reported.

Ben Lovett of Madame Tussauds said: "With his 18th birthday around the corner and stage roles like Equus under his belt, Daniel has become a young British acting force to be reckoned with.

"It's been great for the studio's sculptors to recreate someone who we've all watched growing up on the big screen."

Harry Potter arrives in London

The European premiere of the new Harry Potter film is set to hit London's Leicester Square.

Hundreds of fans are expected to greet JK Rowling, Daniel Radcliffe and the remaining cast members of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The film sees Harry Potter return to Hogwarts with his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, played by Rupert Grint and Emma Watson respectively, for their fifth year at the magical school.

Harry's integrity is called into question when some of the wizard community believe the story of the teenager's recent encounter with Lord Voldemort is a lie.

The world premiere took place in Tokyo last week.

The seventh and last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is released on July 21 with around 1.6 million people worldwide believed to have pre-ordered the book.

Tokyo teens enchanted by grown-up Harry Potter

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - Japanese teens in wizard costumes went into a frenzy at the premiere of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" on Thursday, cheering actor Daniel Radcliffe whose coming of age is a big story on- and off-screen.

Dressed in a white suit, Radcliffe -- who will turn 18 next month and has played boy wizard Harry since 2001 -- looked distinctly grown-up at the red carpet event in Tokyo.

The Order of the Phoenix sees Harry reach greater maturity as he takes a leading role in the fight against the evil Voldemort and experiences his first kiss at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Radcliffe's own rite of passage has not been quite as dramatic: he recently took the role of a disturbed stablehand in the theatre play "Equus" in a break with his child actor image.

Speaking to reporters before a crowd of screaming Japanese fans holding "We love Harry" signs, Radcliffe shrugged off suggestions that the Potter saga defined his adolescence.

"I don't see myself as having grown up on screen. I simply see myself as having grown up. So it's probably stranger for people who have watched all the films," he told Reuters.

The success of the Potter film franchise is one reason why Radcliffe's growing up is a big deal, at least for the movie industry and millions of fans.

The first four Potter films grossed around $3.5 billion, and Radcliffe along with co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint will stick with their parts until the series ends with the seventh film, slated for 2010.


"CHIN UP!"

The continuing popularity of J.K. Rowling's book series may help The Order of the Phoenix repeat that box office success, and Potter producer David Heyman said the actors' personal development also adds a new dimension to the film.

"They really grow up as actors," he told Reuters at the premiere.

"In the first film, Christopher Columbus had to do things like 'chin up' all through the takes if he was not focused, 'come on, don't look away', 'Oh, you are scared'.

"Now they are able to collaborate with the director and create the parts you will see in the film."

Columbus directed the first two Potter films, followed by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron and Britain's Mike Newell.

David Yates directed the fifth and latest film, in which Harry fends off a gang of dementors with a spell and risks expulsion from school for engaging in "underage magic".

The young wizard then has to defend himself at a court hearing in London before starting another action-packed year at Hogwarts boarding school.

The sixth film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", is set for U.S. release in November 2008, while the last book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", will hit bookstores on July 21.