Sci-Fi Storm

The Kid Who Lived is living on quite well, as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the conclusion of the Harry Potter film franchise, brought in $169.2 million in the U.S. box office alone, and another $312.3 million internationally in its opening weekend, beating total projections and breaking the records for best debut domestically and globally. In addition, 43% of the intake in the U.S. was from 3D showings, while a whopping 60% internationally were 3D.

We saw it Saturday in IMAX/3D (we intended to see a midnight showing, but we had to change), and the 3D was great – it wasn’t in your face, but in fact you forget it is in 3D after a short time – and I mean that in the sense that you are generally not conscious of the 3D and the artifacts often seen with it.

The movie was superb and an excellent conclusion to the story. Interestingly, it only comprises about the last third of the book, with the first part taking the other two. That’s due to the amount of action taking place, which rarely stops once it gets going (it starts slowly at the beach cottage where the first part left off).

If you have any emotional investment in the characters, bring tissues.

Interestingly, there were several key scenes where the crowd laughed out loud or cheered – something I haven’t seen in a movie theater in years.

As can be expected, not everything from the book is in the movie – and although I think some of the missing scenes might have better explained a few things (for instance, Teddy Lupin, the son of Remus Lupin and Tonks, gets a quick mention in a key scene but isn’t metioned before when it would have added to the emotion of a later scene), but the movie generally didn’t suffer from their absence.

I’m saddened that this is the end…at least for now. Who knows what J.K. Rowling might have up her sleeve…

Due to schedule conflicts I won’t be seeing the final Harry Potter movie Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 until tomorrow, but plenty of people already have with midnight showings starting this morning. Early returns say that the finale garnered $43.5 million in the U.S. just from midnight showings, and combined with the Wednesday and Thursday international openings, already brings the cume to over $142 million. The midnight record at IMAX theaters was also broken, with $2 million.

About 3000 muggles at the midnight showing at the AMC Universal Cineplex at Universal Studios Resort in Orlando got a special surprise: After the movie they were all given a free pass to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and had the parks all to themselves from 3am-5am!

It’s been almost three months since Peter Jackson posted a video from the set of The Hobbit, but here is the second video from the set, featuring Andy Serkis, Ian McKellan, and some of the dwarves, other cast and crew and what they are going to do while they take a short break, plus some location scouting…and just 200 shooting days left!

Perhaps not a great surprise versus his alter-ego’s clean image, Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe revealed he turned to alcohol as he attempted to live a “famous person’s lifestyle”, in an interview for GQ magazine. Reportedly he turned to drinking during filming of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and “I became so reliant on [alcohol] to enjoy stuff. There were a few years there when I was just so enamoured with the idea of living some sort of famous person’s lifestyle that really isn’t suited to me.”

But he dropped drinking last August, around the time he got together with his unnamed girlfriend. “I’m actually enjoying the fact I can have a relationship with my girlfriend where I’m really pleasant and I’m not ****ing up totally all the time.” Kudos to Daniel for recognizing it and fixing it before it was too late.

If you remember way back when in 2006 when Dean Devlin mentioned that Stargate was originally envisioned as a trilogy of movies (doesn’t everyone do that now?) but with MGM having control and moving to a series he and co-creator Roland Emmerich disavowed, it seemed unlikely that they would get made…but now that the Stargate TV franchise is at least in hibernation, Devlin is still hopeful that parts two and three could still happen, although it may be changed a bit from their original ideas owing to so much time having passed.

I’m still not sure that a movie franchise that ignores the multiple series would help, but who knows…with the state of MGM and how much the word “reboot” is thrown around Hollywood, is they can see any money in it they’ll do it…

Twilight Zone and Night Gallery creator Rod Serling, who also co-wrote the original screenplay for Planet of the Apes, will get a movie about his life. Andrew Meieran through his Bureau of Moving Pictures acquired the rights and will produce along with Serling’s widow, Carol Serling. Stanley Weiser (Wall Street) will write it.

Serling was more than just the guy who introduced and narrated Twilight Zone episodes. He was a paratrooper and a member of the demolition squad in WWII stationed in the Philippines, and even boxed for a time – a life from which he drew experiences for the many episodes of various drama programs and TV movies in the 50s and 60s. He passed away in 1975 at the age of 50, attributed to his life-long chain smoking, but his legacy included several revivals of his programs and even a thrill ride at several Disney theme parks around the world.

World War Z, the post-Zombiepocalypse movie based on the [asin=0307346617]book by Max Brooks[/asin] being directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace), penned by J. Michael Straczynski and Matthew Michael Carnahan (Lions for Lambs) and starring Brad Pitt, reportedly lost two of its other stars: Matthew Fox (Lost) and Ed Harris (The Abyss) – just as production is starting. Fox reportedly has a scheduling conflict (he is also scheduled to star in I, Alex Cross with Tyler Perry), but no word on why Harris has backed out. Auditions have already begun for replacements.

World War Z is a historical account of first-hand experiences of the zombie crisis garnered by the “author” as he travels to gather information for a United Nations report a decade after the war.

Yesterday marked the release of the [sfs=1121]Lord of the Rings Extended Edition on Blu-ray[/sfs], and to celebrate Warner Bros. held a “Midnight Madness” event. If you weren’t able to be there in person in Los Angeles Tuesday night, check out the recap video and images below!

The grand-prize winner of the costume contest, judged remotely by WETA’s Daniel Falconer and Richard Taylor and given a special VIP tour of “Middle-earth”, was an interesting interpretation of a Balrog.
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Despite the lackluster performance of Green Lantern, Warner Bros. is still planning on a sequel, believing the franchise is worth pursuing. The studio is “somewhat disappointed”, with the movie falling 66% this weekend and a total cume so far of $89.3 million. Given that it took about $200 million to produce without including its extensive marketing costs, “somewhat” seems a bit light, but according to Dan Fellman, WB President of domestic distribution, such “fanboy” films see a similar drop off.

The only way I see a sequel making it is if they find a way to cut the production costs…which likely means less alien scenes and locations.

Deadline has an excellent interview with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard about their 25 year partnership with Imagine Entertainment. As part of that, they ask some questions about the ambitious project to turn Stephen King’s The Dark Tower into three movies and two TV series! And they also say why the reports of a budget cut won’t hurt so bad…first, they were hoping to fast track the production, but Universal balked so they are going with a “more traditional timetable”, which is why it was pushed back, but it still could get done faster than usual.

When asked about the budget Grazer responded, “I’m producing it with Akiva Goldsman, who wrote it to be sensitive to cost and is rewriting it to be more so. Without putting a number on it, the cuts aren’t that deep or that radical.”

So we haven’t heard the last of The Dark Tower.