Get what you can through older clips like the one above, because it looks like Moaning Myrtle is getting more to moan about. Snitch Seeker, a Potter fan site, contacted Shirley Henderson's agency, and they confirmed: "I'm sorry to report that Moaning Myrtle has not made it into the latest film." That's right -- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will get none of the moaning cutie. In the realms of the plot, this means that Myrtle won't be able to console Draco Malfoy after Harry performs the Sectumsempra spell on the tow-headed wannabe baddie.

I'm beginning to wonder if the final two-parter announcement is not only to handle all that's packed inside the last installment, but to have enough room to give all the beloved characters their time on screen. At least, with two films, I would hope that they wouldn't have to cut anyone completely out. The only thing that sucks more than a character cut for time, is a character cut when the time is already doubled.

What say you, Potter fans? Is Myrtle an okay exclusion?

[via Ace Showbiz]

One of the best casting decisions in recent memory is Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter. The kid just looks like the spitting image of the literary icon, and he wears the scar and glasses like they're completely natural, like they've always been there. But can you imagine the Potter world without Radcliffe? Like, could you imagine William Moseley being the guy that gets to befriend Hermione and Ron, come onto Cho Chang,* chum up to Dumbledore, and take on Voldemort?

The actor recently talked with MTV, and mentions that he was up for the part of Harry, but that "I don't quite fit the bill, I think." Moseley certainly would've been a much different choice. Luckily, losing that role left him open to play a British child in a different epic, fantastical gig. He plays Peter Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia franchise.

He admits that he wonders what it would have been like, but that "if I could have chosen one part for myself, I would have chosen Peter every single time." So from an actor's perspective, he's happy with Peter, but I wonder, who is your preferred hero?

*Edited thanks to Monster. I don't know why I keep calling her Chen....

Yes, I'm sorry to say it, but we officially won't be getting any Harry Potter next year. After Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince premieres on November 21of this year, we're going to have to wait almost two whole years for Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Coming Soon reports that the first part is set to hit theaters on November 19, 2010, with the second and final installment coming the next summer in 2011. It's nice that Potter fans won't have to wait a full year to see the Part 2, but it's still sad to think that so much time will pass before we can start wrapping up Harry Potter's life on-screen.

The end is still a few years off, but it still brings to mind the start of this cinematic whirlwind. When all this started, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Tom Felton were just wee little things. Check out that cute, bespeckled face above. It's hard to believe this is the nude boy who hurts horses in Equus. How times change. Just imagine how old they'll be and look by 2010!

It's been a busy week for Emma Watson. Not only did she turn 18 (a landmark which caused no small amount of cheering among the guys I know -- you pervs!), and not only did she inherit her Harry Potter fortune, but now she's landed her first real non-Potter role. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she is going to star in Napoleon and Betsy, a historical romance written and directed by Benjamin Ross. It is set to begin shooting in the fall to work around the scheduled 2009 start of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Watson will play Betsy, a young and headstrong noblewoman who is trapped on the island of St. Helena. There, she meets and falls in love with the exiled Napoleon. It's based loosely on a true story -- the real Betsy was all of thirteen, and wrote a book recalling how Napoleon enjoyed playing childish games with her and her siblings. Not quite Harlequin material. I can't help but think that a movie about a playful Napoleon might be more interesting than a bodice ripper. (Possibly, bodices will not be ripped.) The role originally belonged to Scarlett Johannson, who gave it up when the film headed in a younger direction. She is still set to produce the film.

As Napoleon was 46-years-old when exiled to St. Helena, they must really be aiming for the "creepy" level. Perhaps Hollywood will re-imagine him as a handsome twenty-something. I'm envisioning James McAvoy, at least for Watson's sake.

Between seeing We are Wizards at SXSW last month, Elisabeth's excellent Geek Beat column on cosplay and costuming (that's her at the right, dressed as Queen Gorgo), JK Rowling squaring off in court with Steven Vander Ark over this Harry Potter Lexicon, and following the wonderful Twilight fan sites more closely of late, I feel like I've been double-dipped in fandom recently. All this has got me thinking on the concept of fandom and fantasy and what drives people (like myself) to obsess about fictional worlds and characters, and where the line is between healthy love and admiration for books and films and unhealthy obsession.

Don't get me wrong here ... I totally love fansites.. Fans who maintain fansites give hours and hours of their personal time to keeping those sites going, and when sites get popular, they have to recruit other obsessed fans to help them out, all while maintaining the quality of the site and keeping away trolls (and, in the case of Twilight Moms, maybe a few irate spouses to boot!) But how much is too much?

A Harry Potter fan broke down on the stand in court yesterday during the trial for the case brought against him and RDR Books by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling over a published version of a Harry Potter lexicon. According to this AP piece over on Yahoo about the trial, Steven Vander Ark, a devoted (some might say slightly obsessed) fan of the Harry Potter series, got turned onto all-things-Harry while working as a children's librarian at a Christian school; since then, the now 50-year-old fan has devoted countless hours to building and maintaining the online Harry Potter Lexicon, one of the most popular web sites for fans of the series.

Of course, we've all been following this story for a while now. Rowling never took issue with the website, which included lists compiling all the characters, creatures and spells from the massive and hugely successful series. The trouble started when RDR contacted Vander Ark about doing a print version of the Lexicon. Vander Ark was smart enough to get a clause in his contract that specified the publisher would be responsible for legal expenses if they got sued for copyright infringement -- bet he's glad now he thought ahead about that.

Quick, name of all of Matt Damon's fictional brothers -- in order -- from Good Will Hunting!

How good are you at movie quizzes? Have you ever stumbled across a quiz and thought, "This is way too lame -- I could've come up with a much cooler quiz than this?" Are there still a plethora of undiscovered topics out there? And speaking of the word 'plethora,' what movie is this line from: "Jefe, would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?" Okay, I'll stop now. But check it -- Moviefone just launched this really cool feature where you can create your own movie quizzes and share them with other like-minded individuals. Don't feel like creating a quiz? Well, then go exploring around -- there's already a ton of quizzes created by other folks for you can partake in.

Right now, I'm seeing quizzes on the Star Wars Trilogy, on Tom Hanks movies, on celebrity voices, on Harry Potter films, on Will Ferrell, on Pixar Movies, on hidden things in movies ... and the list goes on. There's also a leader board which you can aspire to land on one day. So head on over to Moviefone, create a quiz, take a quiz, what have you, then come back and let us know your favorites. (Also, feel free to pimp your own quiz in the comments section and we'll all run over and take it.)

UPDATE: We've added a clearer version of the image above.

You'll have to excuse the blur in the photo above; it's a scanned version of a photo that's popped up in the new issue of Nick Magazine, and has surfaced over at a Brazilian Harry Potter fansite called Oculemencia. Here, we get our first look at Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) as they sit around in the Gryffindor Common Room. Hermione seems to be reading a paper of some kind, and Ron is just hanging out, staring at the two as if to say, "Can we just, like, go see Horton Hears a Who or something?"

This photo will now be added to the first one that was released back in December. It also follows the recent news that the final Harry Potter flick, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be split into two films. David Yates is expected to direct. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will arrive in theaters on November 21.

[Thanks to Enock]

Quick, raise your hand if you're a Harry Potter fan. Yeah, there are a lot of boy wizard fans, which is probably why a documentary about Harry Potter fandom sounded like a great idea. We Are Wizards, though, is not so much a documentary about Harry Potter fandom in general, as it is about the "Wizard Rock" bands that have grown up around the franchise, and a couple of the bigger Harry Potter fan sites.

The film introduces us to some of these Wizard Rock bands, including Harry and the Potters (brothers Paul and Joe DeGeorge), Draco and the Malfoys (brothers Brian Ross and Bradley Mehlenbacher), and The Hungarian Horntails, headed up by seven-year old punk rocker Darius and his four-year-old brother, Holden, who write songs they call "dragon rock."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I know nothing of this Harry Potter world. I know enough to write about news regarding the films, and occasionally I'll have to do some research before writing a Potter-related post, but to this day I have not picked up one of the books or watched one of the films in its entirety. Perhaps after the seventh film comes out, I'll finally sit down and embrace the Potter universe, but for now, I know nothing. However, this new documentary premiering at next month's South by Southwest Festival looks pretty damn interesting.

It's called We Are Wizards, and it follows several hardcore Potter fans whose lives -- in one way or another -- all revolve around that little boy wizard with glasses. From the synopsis on YouTube: "WE ARE WIZARDS tracks the influential figures leading the creative subculture surrounding the popular series. The film follows a set of individuals ranging from web journalists, authors, artists, filmmakers and musicians, as they enhance and expand the Harry Potter story, often in unexpected ways. WE ARE WIZARDS is a portrayal of creative fans with a common goal: to make their voices heard." We'll be hitting this film up at SXSW, so don't worry Potter fans -- we'll let you know how it is. But you have to admit the trailer looks rather fascinating. Am I right?

We'll have an official SXSW hub launching next week, but in the meantime, all of our pre-festival coverage can be found here.

Now that Daniel Radcliffe has grown up a bit, he's looking to balance off those last few Harry Potter films with stuff a little more "adult." For one, he took on a role (and off his clothes) in the staged play Equus, while he also starred in a cameo during the HBO show Extras as himself (who also happened to be a sex-obsessed teenager). Now, as we begin to start the cycle all over again and anticipate a sixth Potter flick, the UK Guardian reports the dude is among those being considered to star as a war journalist in a film called Journey. They say, "The film, Journey, will see Radcliffe play Dan Eldon, a 22-year-old who was among four journalists stoned to death by a mob in Mogadishu in July 1993. Eldon left behind 17 journals, thousands of pictures and a legacy that has won admirers including Madonna and Julia Roberts." Nice, meaty role, says me.

On another front, it seems fans are getting just a tad restless now that the seventh and final Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is over and done with. The people want more! They want an eighth book! And they will torture poor J.K. Rowling with future Potter questions for what appears to be the rest of her life. According to IESB, this time it's Rowling's own children who seem to be pressuring her into penning an eighth book. But Rowling, who's made approximately five gabillion dollars off the boy wizard, isn't exactly biting ... yet. She says, "If - and it's a big if - I ever write an eighth book, I doubt that Harry would be the central character. I feel I've already told his story. But these are big ifs. Let's give it ten years."

Collider recently caught up with blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer during a press junket for National Treasure 2, when the subject of the big screen version of Ubisoft's Prince of Persia came up. Bruckheimer tells Collider that Persia is set to begin shooting this June. Unfortunately it all hinges on whether the writer's strike has been resolved, since Bruckheimer admits that the script is far from complete, saying, "we have a screenplay, we're just starting to develop the look of it" -- which roughly translates to "my assistant has made some notes while playing the game," I'm guessing. The original plot of the game centered on Prince Shahraman, who is tricked into unleashing a plague on his land and gains the power to control time. Of course, there is also the usual video game goal of rescuing a princess.

Back in November, Chris had reported that Harry Potter director Mike Newell had been offered the job. Well, it seems that Newell is officially on board since Bruckheimer told the site, "We hired a very interesting director, Mike Newell, who did one of the Harry Potter's and also did Donnie Brasco and he's a very inventive, ingenious director and I think he's going to bring something really special to it." The film is expected to work in some of the plot elements of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

The third person action game released by Ubisoft back in 2003 was a huge fan favorite. Combined with the outright suckiness of most video game flicks, there is a lot for Newell to overcome if he wants to make sure that audiences are happy with the final product. Two more sequels to the game were released in '04 and '05, so there is plenty of opportunity for additional films. Considering Bruckheimer's fondness for franchises, there is a real possibility we will be seeing more of the Persian Prince in the years to come.

There's less than a year now until we get the next installment of the Harry Potter series and finally nip at the end of all this wizardry. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is scheduled to come out on November 21, 2008 -- the week before Thanksgiving. So with less than 12 months to go, it's time to start getting that swarm of tantalizing pictures. First up isn't so tantalizing however. In fact, there's a decent chance you wouldn't recognize it as a new one -- it's right there, to the right. You can click on the image to make it bigger.

Harry looks like, well, himself, and I have to agree with Empire, who put the picture up -- Daniel Radcliffe looks a little bit younger. Perhaps it's the fact that he's fully-clothed, and not showing off his man-boy pecs, or that he isn't smoking and hugging horses. It could also be the airbrushing. Is that really necessary? You don't want to remove signs of age from a kid. He shouldn't have to struggle with that until he's at least...25?

But there you have it. Hopefully the next one will be much more exciting, because well, there's a whole lot of stuff coming up in this installment. Even darker than the previous stories, this tale has the clan back at Hogwarts while Voldemort and the Deatheaters gain strength. Dumbledore uses some fancy magic to prepare Harry for the days ahead, while Harry also gets an earful of Ron and Hermione's arguments. Draco, meanwhile, has the chance to become a tried-and-true bad guy, rather than just a wimpering bully, and Snape now teaches the Defense of the Dark Arts class. And if you've read the series, or happened to have seen that spoiler t-shirt, you know that there's also one heck of a twist on the way.

ComingSoon.net has the latest poster for the big-screen version of The Spiderwick Chronicles, and I'm afraid it is just another installment of one-sheets that I think looks pretty 'blah.' Sure, they all have the same look and feel, but since they aren't exactly the most eye-catching designs in the first place, this is not necessarily a good thing. Directed by Mark Waters, Spiderwick is based on the best-selling fantasy series by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. This is the third poster release for the film, and there was also a teaser trailer released in July. I'll admit that after watching the teaser, I couldn't help but think the whole thing seemed an awful lot like Pan's Labyrinth -- but without all of the trauma.

Set in the US, the story revolves around three siblings who stumble across a "field guide to faeries" that opens up a parallel world. While the trio are discovering all kinds of benevolent little creatures, they come across some slightly less-friendly ones as well, and the latest poster even works in a little menace by adding 'Beware' to the heading. The family flick stars Sarah Bolger as Mallory Grace and Freddie Highmore as both Jared and Simon Grace. Rounding out the cast is David Strathairn as Arthur Spiderwick and Mary Louise Parker as Helen Grace.

There were over 12 books published as part of the series, including supplementary books, so there is a lot of material if Nickelodeon decides to make a franchise out of the film. Now that The Golden Compass' future is a little less sure, maybe Spiderwick can take the place of the "heir to Harry Potter" for children's fantasy films. The Spiderwick Chronicles opens on February 15th, 2008.

I love reading about who was supposed to be in roles, especially those roles where you can't imagine any other actor doing it justice. Sometimes the casting changes are a positive change, and sometimes they're just teamed with actor's wrong choices. This story is one of the latter. While talking to MTV, Tim Roth discussed how he was tapped to play Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series, the role that became famous because of Alan Rickman. Why didn't he take the role? He wanted to be in Planet of the Apes. Ouch. Bad choice!

Roth said: "I was going to do both films. We rigged it so that I could fly back and forth. They figured out the schedule, but it just got to be overwhelming in my mind. my kids really liked the books. They were really into me doing it, but the idea of being an ape with Tim was too good." I wonder what his kids think about this decision, or if he regrets it at all, but isn't admitting it. If he had taken the role, he'd be closer to Snape's age in the books, which was late-30s. Instead, they went the Interview with the Vampire route (the super-old Armand) and got Rickman, who is currently 61.

Roth says he would have made his Snape "a very different guy." For sure! Can you imagine Roth as Snape? Would he have done an ever better job, or was the scheduling conflict a great gift to the series?