Well, it has been a busy old time in the realm of Potter mania, as you would expect with Order of the Phoenix out in cinemas (more on that soon) and the Deathly Hallows (the final book) due to be released in the same month.

Build-up to the Book and Film Releases

I’ve been collecting news stories. It started back towards the end of last month with a hacker claiming he had broken into Bloomsbury’s computer systems and stolen the end of the book, so knew who died, and had posted it on a website. Naturally Bloomsbury came out to say it was a load of rubbish and it was just another load of junk. Still, a good way to get some traffic to your website.

That was followed by a story that a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (the UK title for Sorcerer’s Stone in case any of our American visitors are confused), sold for £9,000 at auction in London. It had a pre-sale estimate of £5-7,000. The woman who was selling the book had originally bought it with book tokens. This was a week after a student sold his first edition for £7,200. A couple of times this week, when discussion of Potter has come up, I have brought up the story of when Rowling first got her book deal. She was paid a £2,500 advance and told not to give up her job as children’s authors don’t make any money.

The premiere of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix kicked off in Tokyo as June was drawing to a close, with Pottermania being very evident and Daniel Radcliffe garnering a lot of attention. He even managed to say hello in Japanese. Not sure what the decision was to to the world premiere in Japan, it’s a big audience, maybe the franchise needed a boost there, up until now they have all been in the UK.

At the UK premiere it seemed to be the weather which turned against everyone. There was also news that 1.6 million people have already pre-ordered the next book. The article also has an interesting look at how Daniel Radcliffe, as Harry Potter, as changed and aged in the series.

On Jonathan Ross’ chat show, Rowling admitted she was happy but devastated that the books had come to a close. Let’s not forget that the first book was published 10 years ago. She must have been working on Potter for at least 15 years (in the interviews I have seen she stated she worked on HP for 5 years before publication). I’ve recorded the show but not watched it yet, I’ll try and transcode it into a size that reasonable and post it up somewhere. Although you can find it on YouTube should you wish to.

The stars of the movies did not rest after the premieres in Tokyo and London though, they shot off to Los Angeles to put hand, foot and wand prints into concrete outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Not so long ago Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and George Clooney were doing the same thing. Radcliffe described it as ‘truly amazing,’ while Emma Watson was quoted as saying it was ‘the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.’

With the movie premieres out the way the focus turned to the upcoming book, with suggestions that the embargo stopping shops from the selling the book until 21st July may not hold. Previously there have been small breaches by a few small stores, or by mistake, but most were kept inline with threats they would not be allowed to carry future books in the series. As this is the last, that threat no longer exists. Bloomsbury have reportedly said they would withhold other books, but as no one has yet found anything on the scale of Potter, that’s not much of a threat. Added to this were the number of outlets stocking it which would not normally carry books, so probably wouldn’t care. I’ve not pre-ordered mine, that seems to be a recipe for getting them later than anyone else and they don’t seem to have suffered shortages due to under printing so far, so I’m confident I’ll be able to get a copy somewhere.

News then filtered in on how Order of the Phoenix was doing at the box office. Apparently it has had mixed reviews, and has a 12A rating, which may cut the size of its potential audience. In the US it garnered $44.2 million (£21.8m) and $29.9 million (£14.7 million) from 22 other countries in a mid-week release (unheard of). The first four films has so far grossed more than $3.5 billion worldwide.

Looking to the Future

On the same day, Warner Bros., the studio behind the Harry Potter films, announced they had acquired the rights to the seven-book Septimus Heap series, hoping this will fill the void when Potter is gone. I’ve not heard much about Septimus, by author Angie Sage, but I’ll be looking into it and let you know. Amazon list the synopsis for the first book as:

A baby girl is rescued from a snowy path in the woods. A baby boy is stillborn. A young Queen is taken ill. An ExtraOrdinary Wizard mysteriously resigns from his post. And all on the same night. A string of events, seemingly unconnected, begins to converge ten years later, when the Heap family receive a knock at the door. The evil Necromancer DomDaniel is plotting his comeback and a Major Obstacle resides in the Heap family. Life as they know is about to change, and the most fantastically fast-paced adventure of confused identities, magyk and mayhem, begin.

And the quote from inside the flap has a little more info:

Evil necromancer DomDaniel is plotting his comeback. Having ‘executed’ the most daringly ruthless part of his plan, one obstacle remains. But this obstacle, although small is proving to be a challenge, and DomDaniel is not fond of challenges he hasn’t created personally. They tend not to live for long … unless, that is, they happen to be a memeber of the Heap family.

You can find out more at the official Septimus website. There are extracts of the books on both that website and the UK version too. Sage is a British author I might add.

Rowling has said she will not write any more, but decisions can be reversed. It’s unlikely she’ll do it for the money though. She has mentioned a book aimed at younger children and a grown-up thriller before, so we’ll see how they do.

Everyone seems to be looking to the future and what will replace Harry Potter, or if anything will. I guess we’ll see. At least we have two more films to look forward to.

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