Hogwarts Herald

This Saturday, February 21, 2009, the latest MTV Spoilers episode is premiering. The 30 minutes show is a quarterly show that gives sneak peeks at some upcoming movies. This latest edition will include some info on the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie, which is still about 5 months away from release with its release date of July 17, 2009. The MTV Spoilers episode is supposed to give more info on the scene added to the movie that they first announced last year. This scene is not from the book and the rumors going around have been that it seems to be a scene involving Death Eaters attacking the Burrow, which is thought by many to be a bad add on since something similar happens in Book 7 and is totally belongs on screen in the first of the Book 7 movies, but many now not happen or may not seem as important as it should. Anyways the MTV Spoilers episode is to include an exclusive visit to the UK filming set for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The episode will also include the director David Yates, Daniel Radcliffe (plays Harry Potter), Emma Watson (plays Hermione), and Rupert Grint (plays Ron) talking about the darker theme of this movie compared to the prior movie releases.

This MTV Spoilers episode also has some stuff related to some other movies, so the Harry Potter part might not be that long, however, it seems it might be one of the longer is not longest segments. The other movies with sneak peek stuff in this episode include Watchmen, Star Trek, Land of the Lost, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

By the way filming for the movies based on the 7th book begin today, February 19, 2009.

Remember to comment this month and get an entry in the Hogwarts Herald February 2009 Contest to win a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

At select Regal Theaters there is a special preview of the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie. The special includes new footage, clips, and interviews with some of the cast. The interviews are to include Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), and the producer David Heyman. The interview part certainly sounds new, but from the description of the clips including some of it seems old (i.e. I have seen it in trailers before), although also some new stuff at least.

This site describes the following scenes as being in the preview: “Bellatrix on top of a table in the Great Hall throwing a spell (extended), Hermione throwing birds at Ron, Hermione’s jealousy of Ron and Lavender (”Excuse me, I have to go vomit”), Dumbledore levitating items in the Dursley house, a couple of new lines from Dumbledore, new shots of the Inferi, and the “She Thinks You’re the Chosen One” scene (extended).”

Remember to comment this month and get an entry in the Hogwarts Herald February 2009 Contest to win a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The other day I posted about Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies, taking the SATs to apply to American universities. Today I read an article about her choice of schools. Her top choice is Harvard, but she is also considering other Ivy League schools, such as Yale and Brown. After filming the Harry Potter movies, she is ready to shift her focus more exclusively to school. Sounds like she is very Hermione-like in that all along she has kept on top of her studies and worked acting around them. By the way I also read an article today that mentioned she was still deciding between going to university at Oxbridge or an Ivy league school.

Remember to comment this month and get an entry in the Hogwarts Herald February 2009 Contest to win a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The three main actors in the Harry Potter Films all made it into the top 20 list of highest paid celebrities under 30 put together by Forbes. Of the three Daniel Radcliffe brought in the most money making $32.5 million for the year ending June 2008. That put him ahead of popular teen musicians and actors Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Emma Watson also made the list with her earnings being $7.1 million. Rupert Grint was behind her bringing in $6.4 million, which was still enough to make the top 20 list. No one was anywhere close to the Beyonce Knowles, who is at the top of the list with $104 million. The second place person, Justin Timberlake, actually barely earned more than half of what Knowles earned, as his earnings were $57.3 million.

The other day Emma Watson posted an update on her website. One of the things she mentions is that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows begins doing test shots for Part 1 (remember this one is being released as two movies, i.e. it is broken into Part 1 and Part 2). Sounds like the test shot she is going in for on Monday, January 27, 2009, is mostly costume fitting, making her hair browner, and possibly also some rehearsal. She sounds excited for the shooting of the next Harry Potter movie and seeing Dan Radcliffe and Rupert Grint again, as she has not seen Dan since the summer and Rupert since the autumn.

Other things she talked about in her update is that she is taking the SATs this Saturday. Sounds like she is getting ready to apply to university and that includes some universities in the United States.

Here is an article about Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, talking about the Ron and Hermione relationship that takes place in the 7th book. He is dreading the romantic scenes that occur between Ron and Hermione in the 7th book and soon to be in the 7th movie because that means he has to film romantic scenes with Emma Watson. The kiss scene is expected to be part of the filming that begins next month for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movies. You would think it would be nothing when Rupert recently did much more graphically romantic acting in the movie Cherrybomb. Apparently, though the idea of a romantic thing with Emma Watson is more daunting.

It sounds like it is more daunting than the more intense scene in Cherrybomb because he has known Emma Watson for much longer than Kimberley Nixon, who he did the scene with in Cherrybomb. He is hoping that Emma will be similarly distracted as Kimberley was when they did the scene in Cherrybomb. He mentions they kept themselves distracted by doing crosswords in between takes on the set of Cherrybomb and that he has a stack of crosswords ready for the upcoming filming of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I guess even when a scene is just an act it can be nerve racking. It must be hard, though, since he has been doing the movies with Emma Watson for many years now and did not even know about the kissing part until the 7th book came out, but it has been long enough to get ready for it or to think too much about it and get more nervous. Sounds very Ron-like, though, and thus a good way to be in character.

As I was browsing my Harry Potter Google news alert today, I noticed this article about Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies, talking about being skinny. Below is the quote of what she said.

“I don’t think it’s very pretty to be really, really, skinny, It’s not inspirational at all for me. I’m lucky and I’m this size naturally,” the Sun quoted Emma, as saying. “I don’t diet and I don’t aspire to be super skinny. I just don’t think it’s very pretty,” Emma added.

Emma Watson also said she is a foodie and likes to cook, so she would never do good following a diet, anyways. It is nice for once to see that an actress actually thinks that you should not try to be super skinny, but she does seem to think being at least skinny is a good thing because she thinks she is lucky to be skinny naturally. I think she is fine size wise, but I do not think you have to even be skinny to be healthy. I kind of think of the term skinny meaning you are underweight even if just slightly.

Stopping by Emma Watson’s official website has been very informative for me this fine day. By the way, if you haven’t been, it’s a lovely and well designed site and you should definately visit. Different journal entries to date have updated me on some amazing things!!!

First of all, it was posted that the principal filming on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has finshed. Filming finished on Saturday May 17th, and now the entire cast and crew is “eagerly awaiting the November release.” HBP is scheduled to be released in theaters in the US November 21, 2008. I, for one, will be in line at 10 minutes to midnight in my wizarding best. My goal on the read-along is to be done with boox six in time for the November release of the film. I had better get cracking!

The next wonderful tidbit is about Harry Potter the Exhibition. That’s right, just like Titanic: The Exhibition and Bodies: The Exhibiton, there will now be Harry Potter: The Exhibition. A 10,000 square foot experience that will include costumes props and artifacts of many of the Hogwarts environments including the Gryffindor Common Room and Hagrid’s Hut. The Exhibition will be opening Spring of 2009 and will be touring the world stopping in at least 10 cities. Let’s hope Vegas is one of them. Of course, Titanic and Bodies were both supposed to be here for only a month or two, and they are both still here several years later. One can only hope the same will be true of Harry. More details as they come in, I promise!

In other news, not from Emma, it looks like Warner Brothers has heard my cry of lament. The official Harry Potter website has been updated with tons of new content. Games and graphics. Finally it is more than just an ad for the newest DVDs. It has the Sorting Hat, and Olivanders Wand Shop where you get your very own wand. And everywhere you navigate there is something interactive and fun! Thank you Warner Brothers for paying attention to what your customers want!!!

And finally, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, Scholastic has announced a special edition of SS to be released in September. The new copy of the book will have a brand new cover by Marie GrandPre as well as some extra tidbits from JK Rowling. I can’t wait!!!

Or does she???

There’s conflicting reports out about Emma Watson’s future in the Harry Potter franchise.

On the one hand you have outlets like TV Guide reporting she’s gone.

Then on the other hand you have stories like this one on Associated Content saying that she’s staying put. And there’s another in the Chicago Tribune.

What’s a fan to believe?

Personally, I don’t put much stock in the “she’s staying” reports. Why? It seems rather speculative…and they’re reporting it as fact. It’s not Emma or her people saying she’ll be back…it’s Warner Bros. saying “they’re confident” she’ll be back. That doesn’t sound like a sure thing to me.

She may very well be back, and I sure hope she does come back (it would be really, really weird if she didn’t). Maybe it’s just a healthy mis-trust of big business and big media, but I don’t put much faith into what they’re saying.

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Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are among the 50 actors and actresses (25 of each) found on Fandango’s top 50 list of “the stars they (filmgoers) are most looking forward to seeing on the big screen in 2007.”

Daniel comes in at #20 on the list of actors, right between Jim Carrey (#19) and John Travolta (#21).

Emma is found at #24 on the list of actresses, between Sarah Jessica Parker (#23) and Anne Hathaway (#25).

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Daniel Radcliffe comes in at #22 and Emma Watson’s #16 on IMDb’s STARmeter Top 25 for 2006, a ranking of “actual search behavior of over 42 million users of IMDb.com.”

This is a pretty good showing for the two Potter stars as neither appeared in a movie in 2006. No doubt they’ll get a little boost in 2007 from the release of Order of the Phoenix.

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