Sci-Fi Storm

Well, it wasn’t the greatest news for genre features this year, despite a lot of hopes…if you followed the nominations (or my tweets), you know that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 got the snub for Best Picture despite the 10-film field (the closest to a genre film was Hugo), while the Academy again shows they don’t know how to deal with motion-capture performances and ignored Andy Serkis yet again for his work in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But what did garner nominations?
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The science fiction and fantasy genre seems to have taken a hit in the latest Golden Globe nominations. It don’t see anything in the Motion Picture awards at all aside from the animated features, which is very surprising given the major buzz about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Harry Potter could still see an Oscar nod as the field is larger there, but it could mean it is a longshot at winning.

On the TV side, however, there were a few genre hits, notably Game Of Thrones receiving nods for “Best Television Series – Drama” and a “Best Supporting Actor” for Peter Dinklage, while American Horror Story also received one for “Best Television Series – Drama” and “Best Supporting Actress” for Jessica Lange.

SF-friendly show The Big Bang Theory saw a single nod for Johnny Galecki for “Best Performance By An Actor In A Television Series – Comedy Or Musical”.

The complete nomination list is available at Deadline.

Apple has compiled it’s annual “Rewind” list, which lists the top downloads on it’s iTunes service, and in the U.S. it was a British SF show that beat all comers. Doctor Who topped the list of TV Season downloads, joined by True Blood and The Walking Dead among the genre in the top 10. The Walking Dead had the top-selling single episode, “What Lies Ahead”, with Terra Nova‘s “Instinct” at 6th and Smallville‘s “Finale, Parts 1 and 2” at 10th.

In movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 was named “Best Blockbuster”, while Source Code was 7th among movie downloads.

Universal Parks & Resorts confirmed in a press conference today the hot rumor for the past week: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter will come to Hollywood – specifically the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park. Very little details was given, such as how they’d fit it in the park (and it WILL be part of the park, not a separate park) – but it would definitely include Hogwart’s castle and the Forbidden Journey ride.

Also confirmed but with even less detail given is that the existing WWOHP section at Islands of Adventure in Orlando will be expanded, as long rumored – but that’s it. Some rumors state that they will somehow connect to space becoming available in the Universal Studios park (fueled by the recent announcement that the long-standing Jaws attraction is closing) – but they are fairly far apart with lots of support buildings and access roads in between. More likely is that it will take over more of the Lost Continent area.

Update: Hypable has a live blog of the announcement.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter may be getting a twin…and perhaps a lot more siblings. Earlier this month Universal Studios President Ron Meyer said in an interview, while panning recent studio failures, said, “Yes” when asked about plans to build additional Harry Potter parks.

Well now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that a second Wizarding World of Harry Potter is on the way (paid subscription required to read the whole article) – and the location will be at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Not much more details, other than an official announcement may come next week. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was a huge success in Orlando (see a previous trip report here), helping to bolster the flailing Islands of Adventure park. Rumors have gone around about a possible expansion to that area, but with the possibility of money going to the other coast to build fresh there, I wonder if that pay delay any expansion plans.

The Syfy Digital Press Tour event begins tomorrow, so I thought I’d give a little preview of what’s going on, and give you another opportunity to ask questions that I will get answers for! during the event, you can follow along with Twitter using the #syfytour hash tag, and I’ll be live tweeting through all the panels, and as much as I can during the Halloween Horror Night and Harry Potter parties!
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According to Warner Bros, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is their highest grossing film ever internationally – and it reached that mark in a mere 19 days of release. Just this past weekend it took in $66.6 million internationally on 14,500 screens. And it doesn’t even open in China until Thursday.

For some reason I can see Warner Bros executives wishing J.K. Rowling would write some more stories…not sure why 🙂

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!

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.