First Photo of the Wizarding World’s Hogwarts!

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!

Half-Blood Prince Score Loses Out on Grammy

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.

Radcliffe Talks Filming Deathly Hallows

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.

Alexandre Desplat to Compose Deathly Hallows, Part 1

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.

Much Ado Over Possible Daniel Radcliffe Nakedness

Last month we ran a story that featured a quote from director David Yates telling VideoBusiness.com that there’ll be a scene in Deathly Hallows in which Ron will see a Horcrux-induced “nightmarish vision” of Harry making out with Hermione while “bare.”

Additionally, La Vibra later ran a story in which Yates apparently told them, “there is another scene in Kings Cross station, where Harry almost dies and sees Dumbledore. In that scene he will also be naked.”

Neither of these two scenes should be particularly surprising to anybody who read the book.  Yep, Ron was subconsciously worried about Harry and Hermione, and yep, Harry was naked during his afterlife scene with Dumbledore.  But a lot of people wrote articles about it, enough for the anti-gossip blog Gossip Cop (a really obnoxious site, by the way) to write a story debunking the rumors:

One thing we can guarantee is that filmmakers plan to “present” any scenes of Radcliffe in a way no different than any other ‘PG’ fare. Audiences may see the actor in various states of undress – but claims he’ll “bare all,” as OK! reports, weren’t true a month ago… and they aren’t true now.

Uh, I don’t think anybody was expecting full frontal.  These are Harry Potter movies.  Doesn’t change the fact that the character might still be naked in those scenes.

Tom Felton Casts Uncertainty on Deathly Hallows Epilogue

In an interview with MTV, Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) said he still hasn’t heard anything about the “19 Years Later” epilogue at the end of Deathly Hallows — whether it’s happening, whether he’d be doing it, or whether they’d hire another actor to do it.

We haven’t shot that yet, and I still haven’t had the confirmation whether we’re doing it — or as and when we’re doing it, whether I’m doing it, or they’re going to get someone else to do it.  I still haven’t heard too much about it, so I guess they’re still making decisions about it now.  But Daniel [Radcliffe] and I have talked about it and it’d be something we’d be very excited to do.

Let’s hope they’re not doing it!  I know a lot of fans want it, but on screen, it will probably be terrible.  Think it through.  See, there are three options:

1. Use the same actors, just with prosthetics and CGI, so the audience spends the entire scene going, “Wow, he looks good…she looks fake…they did an okay job with him…”
2. Use different, older actors, so the audience spends the entire scene going, “He doesn’t look like him…I guess he looks kind of like her…his voice is totally weird…”
3. Don’t film it and avoid all these problems entirely.

Felton did joke about the second option, when asked if he’d be disappointed if they went with other actors:

Kind of, yeah.  I suppose it’d be a little bit all right if it was Brad Pitt or Leonardo or someone like that.  But no, I’d like to do it, because the people who do the prosthetics are some of the best in the world, so I’d like to know what I look nineteen years on.  It’d be kind of freaky to see what they came up with.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: First Teaser Trailer!

The DVD and Blu-Ray of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince promised a sneak peek at Deathly Hallows, but I figured it’d be maybe fifteen seconds of behind-the-scenes footage.  Instead, we get a full-fledged teaser that’s almost a minute and a half long.

You can check out the YouTube embed below, but chances are Warner Bros. will take it down, as they haven’t officially released the teaser publicly (at least to anybody who doesn’t have the DVD or Blu-Ray).  If so, FilmoFilia seems to have a working copy.  It’s a great teaser that does exactly what’s required — and yes, there’s a lot of scenes of running around in the woods, just like the book.

First 2 Official Still Photos of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

They don’t show a heck of a lot, but still, these are indeed official production photos from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  The first one seems to take place in 12 Grimmauld Place, while the second could be a lot of things.  Right now my guess is it’s right before Harry, Ron, and Hermione infiltrate the Ministry of Magic.  Check ‘em out:

All the Half-Blood Prince Deleted Scenes

While browsing YouTube I managed to find all the deleted scenes on the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince DVD.  You can check them out below.

The first half or so are mostly conversations between Harry and Hermione about how and why Draco is disappearing from the castle grounds.  After that we get a disturbing story from Dumbledore, the extended pre-climax sequence I posted earlier, and some extended moments between Harry and his friends at the end.

Half-Blood Prince DVD Has More Special Features Than Ever

In a recent interview with VideoBusiness — the same one in which it was revealed that Harry would kiss Hermione in a fantasy sequence of Deathly Hallows, incidentally — Harry Potter producer David Heyman announced that the DVD and Blu-Ray release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince offers more special features than any other Potter release.

“This is the richest title we have done,” said Heyman, who has produced all of the Harry Potter films. “For a long time, we decided not to put that much on the DVD. There was a part of me that doesn’t like extras, because I like the mystery of it all. But with the market being the way it is, it’s important to make the title as attractive a proposition as possible.”

For example, new exclusive Blu-ray feature to the series ‘Maximum Movie Mode’ details Phelps’ debut as assistant director on the Half-Blood set in addition to playing his Fred character. Wright also has a dual role in the set design department. Also via Maximum Movie Mode, stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) show off their editing and stunt skills, respectively.

Heyman noted that both two-disc standard DVD and Blu-ray editions hold the documentary J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life, marking the first time the author has spoken in depth about her writing process.

“She doesn’t give many interviews, and then you go to editing with Dan, stunts with Rupert, and also hear them talk about their characters—their likes and dislikes—that’s great,” Heyman said.

Wow.  I don’t usually pick up the individual Potter DVDs (I was telling myself I’d wait until the end of the series, but I faltered and bought a five-pack of the previous movies last year) — but this actually makes me want to check out the special features, like, now.

I wonder if a major gift-exchange holiday is coming up.