What do you do when your best-grossing movie franchise is near its end? You try to prolong it, of course. This may be what Warner Bros. has decided to do with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the adaptation of the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's series. According to The Mail on Sunday, "crew working on the sixth Potter film, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, have been told J.K. Rowling's seventh book, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, will be released in two halves." But the decision -- if true -- is claimed not to be about squeezing more money out of the boy wizard. Instead the studio would split the final book over two films because the book of Deathly Hallows is way too long to appropriately condense it into one feature-length release. Of course, the book of Order of the Phoenix was even longer and they made that one into a single movie.The move to extend Harry Potter 7 so that it's Harry Potter 7 and Harry Potter 8 seems to make sense for both financial and artistic reasons, and it also seems appropriate after the confirmation that The Hobbit would too be spread out over two films. Considering none of the other attempted fantasy franchises have been received very well, the idea that both the Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings franchises would be extended appears to be a good one for both Hollywood and the fans. Who cares if Warner Bros. does want to do this for the money? You hardcore Potter lovers know you'd rather have another movie to watch, especially one that allows more of your favorite scenes from Deathly Hallows to make it in. Apparently Rowling agrees that the adaptation of her book needs to be at least longer than 4 hours -- and anybody thinking they can keep the kids seated for a single, 5-hour movie would have to be crazy. And speaking of crazy, that's exactly what The Mail on Sunday is for thinking Steven Spielberg could be the "big-name director" expected to helm the two-part Deathly Hallows and for thinking that Warner Bros. could seriously be hoping for an Oscar-worthy finale.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-14-2008 @ 10:50AM
Corey Atad said...
I guess I can see the idea of two movies making sense financially, but I just don't see it working well at all with what is in the book. The book, though quite long, has a very clear beginning, middle and end. You can't just break it apart in the middle without severely slowing the momentum of the story. This reminds me of the rumours that they were going to do the same thing with the fourth film because it was so long. That never panned out and I really hope it doesn't for this one either. I haven't been a huge fan of the films, but I really would like them to get the last book to be as good as possible. A 2-parter is not the way to do that.
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1-14-2008 @ 10:54AM
Arlo J. Wiley said...
Hey now, those first three films were great (especially the third), so if the series makes a rebound, who knows? It could get a little Oscar glory.
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1-14-2008 @ 1:00PM
ML said...
After a shorthand Phoenix we get to see the middle section of Hallows spread out in all its difficult glory? Sheesh.
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