And here we seem to have stumbled into the middle of the Tri-Wizard Tournament:

Not bad!  Check out more of the videos here.

“I will be devastated [when it's over],” Radcliffe, 20, said Wednesday at the National Movie Awards in London. “There is nothing I watch without it triggering a series of memories. Everything [about the films] is so linked to my life. At the same time, it is exciting. It is the end.”

“I feel like someone is dying,” said Watson, 20, adding that she never expected just how big the franchise would get (even inspiring a theme area at Universal Orlando). “This kind of love and recognition is just incredible. It is also really emotional for me. I am proud.”

The article notes that Watson is planning on laying low this summer — aside from being done with Harry Potter, she’s on break from Brown — while Radcliffe will jump into another Broadway gig with How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Nice hairline, Dan!

[via Slashfilm]

The first scene of the extended trailer was Harry and Voldemort’s confrontation in the woods outside Hogwarts. Harry, bloodied and visibly terrified, approaches a cold Voldemort (flanked by Bellatrix Lestrange); Voldemort taunts Harry, “The boy who lived, come to die.”

The footage shown came from all sections of The Deathly Hallows, so it’s impossible to tell where they will split up the two movies. We saw little bits of everything, from the seven Harry Potters escaping from the Dursleys house (totally surreal) to the attack at Bill and Fleur’s wedding to the escape from Gringotts on the pale dragon and even Hogwarts on fire. With unfinished effects it’s hard to really say how it all looks, though some of the most effective moments were the simplest– Ron and Harry’s fight in the tent, Harry visiting his parents’ graves, running away from the Snatchers in the woods, Harry defiantly telling Voldemort that he stays alive “because I have something worth fighting for.”

Filming the scene late in Deathly Hallows in which Harry walks through the Forbidden Forest to meet Voldemort was “really hard,” according to star Daniel Radcliffe, speaking to MTV.

The scene — one of the emotional peaks of the novel — comes right after Harry learns he may have to die at Voldemort’s hand in order for Voldemort to ultimately be defeated.  As he walks to his fate, the ghosts of his dead relatives accompany him in solidarity.  That includes Sirius Black, who was played once again by Gary Oldman.

Radcliffe explained:

It was just one of those things where I think, because I put a lot of pressure on myself to get it right beforehand, I wasn’t able to relax and enjoy it as much as I might have done otherwise. So I was slightly annoyed about that. …

It was one of those scenes that by the end of the third day of it, we were going, “I don’t know if I like this one as much as I did at the beginning.” It was really, really tough.  But Gary was brilliant.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon opened this past December to a record-breaking $143 million opening in North America.  But fifteen weeks later, it has managed to climb to $296 million — a few notches less than Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’s $302 million total.  By the time New Moon finally leaves theaters when the DVD and Blu-Ray come out on March 20th, it will have reached around $297-298 million.

Now naturally, Twilight should be applauded for capturing the hearts and imaginations of women around the world, and a gross just shy of $300 million is a wild success by any measure.

But the aging Harry Potter franchise still managed to beat it.  (Worldwide grosses are even more pronounced: Harry Potter made $934 million versus New Moon’s $706 million.)  Now we’ll just have to see how The Twilight Saga: Eclipse performs versus Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Part I in this coming year.

Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out, but there might be some truth in it.  The news came from a couple of tweets from producer Christine Vachon, who revealed that she attended a script reading with Radcliffe, Rabe, and director Douglas McGrath.  She didn’t reveal the name of the movie.  So if it’s not The Lucky One, what is it?

MTV suggests it might be Nothing Else Like it on Earth, a story about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.  Sigourney Weaver and Nathan Lane have also been attached to the project.

Still, there have been no confirmations, and the fact is, a script reading doesn’t mean you’re actually involved in the movie.  A lot of times, script readings are done as favors, or just to check out a story and find out how well it plays when you have actors speaking the lines out loud.

But stay tuned.  Whether or not Radcliffe ends up in this movie, it sounds more and more like he’ll have an interesting post-Harry Potter career.

In the Harry Potter franchise, Helena Bonham Carter plays Bellatrix Lestrange, of course.  But if you’ll remember, there’s a scene in Deathly Hallows — the one where they break into Gringotts — in which Hermione takes some polyjuice potion in order to transform into Bellatrix.  Naturally, Emma Watson wouldn’t be filming those scenes — Carter would.

The actress told MTV recently that the scenes were great fun to film:

“The best bit about being Bellatrix in this one is also because I got to pretend to be Hermione,” she added of a pivotal scene that has the evil witch’s identity being assumed by Harry’s friend in order to gain access to Gringotts Wizarding Bank, which holds Hufflepuff’s cup — and a part of Voldemort’s soul. “Because Hermione takes polyjuice potion and gets to look like Bellatrix.”…

“It was great fun,” she said of the scene. “[I was] looking at Dan [Radcliffe] and Rupert [Grint] and they were treating me as if I was 17.”

Carter also reveals that all of her scenes take place in Part II of Deathly Hallows — which is a pretty big clue in terms of where they’re going to split the book up.  The scene in which she tortures Hermione happens around the midpoint of the book, but it’ll be in the second film.

Wright officially met Bower at a party, but the two both appear in Deathly Hallows — Wright as Ginny, of course, and Bower as Grindelwald, the wizard from Dumbledore’s past.  (Bower also appears in The Twilight Saga as the Volturi’s Caius.)

The two have been dating for six months but officially came out as a couple at this year’s BAFTA awards.  Ginny and Grindelwald — now there’s an odd couple for you.

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.