Not sure how I feel about this, but apparently Warner Bros. is giving the go-ahead on turning Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, both parts, into 3D.

Apparently the conversion cost is only $5 million, plus another $5 million in expenses for 3D glasses and such, which the studio assumes it will easily be able to make back in added revenue.

It’s hard to deny that 3D movies currently tend to make more money, especially when Avatar is still raking in millions, about to breakthrough Titanic’s record $600 million gross.  But is 3D right for Harry Potter?  The series doesn’t take place on an alien world, it takes place in England, and Deathly Hallows Part 1 in particular takes place largely in the woods.

Hopefully it won’t hurt the movies…it just feels unnecessary.  But hey, studios are in the business of making money.

We’ve seen videos and concept art in preparation of Universal Orlando’s The Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park, but here’s the first photo of what Hogwarts Castle will look like.  Very, very cool!

The 2010 Grammy Awards are being held tonight, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’s Nicholas Hooper was nominated for Best Score Soundtrack Album.

Unfortunately, he lost the award to Michael Giacchino’s sad and sweet score for Up.

Also nominated was Alexandre Desplat for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and by coincidence, Desplat was just hired to score Deathly Hallows, Part 1.

Speaking briefly to the Daily Record, Daniel Radcliffe talked a bit about what it was like to shoot the first edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

“We were only in Scotland for one night to do the camping scenes but it was magic,” he revealed. “The mountains up there looked kind of blue and and the weather was great.”

Radcliffe explained that fans might be surprised by Deathly Hallows, which has been split into two films.

“Part one is a road movie,” he said. “We are not in Hogwarts at all and it’s going to look very different. And the action is going to be pretty extraordinary.”

Not surprising to readers of the book, but still, a pretty big step for the series as a whole.  I think audiences who aren’t familiar with the story will be very surprised.  Hopefully in a good way.

According to Film Score Monthly (via Filmonic), composer Alexandre Desplat has been hired on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1.

Desplat most recently composed the score for The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and was nominated for Oscars for his work on the films The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Queen.  He takes over for Nicholas Hooper, who did the previous two Potter flicks.

John Williams, of course, started off the franchise and created that familiar theme, and with Desplat only being hired for the first Deathly Hallows, it’s still possible Williams could return.