Last “Harry Potter” To Be Two Movies
According to the Hollywood Reporter:
The final Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” will be adapted into two films, Warner Bros. confirmed Wednesday.
Titled simply “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1″ and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the movies are to be released in November 2010 and May 2011.
David Yates, who is currently directing the adaptation of the sixth novel, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” and is slated to helm the seventh film, will direct both movies, which would be shot back-to-back. Steve Kloves, who has written all but one of the “Potter” movies, also is returning to write two-parter.
“Hallows,” which sold more than 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release, is J K. Rowling’s biggest book, weighing in at 784 pages. Adapting the novel would have resulted in either truncating large swaths of it or making an extra-long feature in order to fit everything in. The studio found itself in a situation Quentin Tarantino found himself in with “Kill Bill,” where simply splitting one long movie in two worked best creatively.
The decision was surely helped because the movies are surefire hits, as the “Potter” franchise has brought in billions of dollars for Warners, which distributes the movies worldwide and has no financial partner on them.
