Harry Potter

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″ and “X-Men: First Class” lead the way with 14 nominations each for Spike TV’s Scream Awards 2011, the televised trophy franchise that has become the sci-fi, horror and fantasy universe’s equivalent of the MTV Video Music Awards. The sixth annual Scream Awards will be taped Oct. 15 on the Universal lot and then air as a two-hour show on Oct. 18. Other notable nominees include “Captain America: The First Avenger” (11 nominations), “Thor” (nine), “True Blood” (seven), ”Game of Thrones (seven) and AMC’s “The Walking Dead” (six). Voting is done by fans who visit the Spike TV website. In the world of comic books, the nominees for best writer are Ed Brubaker, Joe Hill, Robert Kirkman, Grant Morrison and Mike Mignola, while the field for best artist — Charlie Adlard, Mark Buckingham, Duncan Fegredo, John […]

Fresh from the wizarding world, “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe is trying his hand at horror in the upcoming film “The Woman in Black.” A new trailer shows Radcliffe in a creepy mansion, playing a young attorney sent to settle the affairs of a deceased client. There, he discovers the ghost of a scorned woman, the mysterious “woman in black.” The film also stars Ciarán Hinds, another “Harry Potter” actor, who played Aberforth Dumbledore in the franchise’s final film. The Potter story got darker with each new film, so the horror role seems like a natural (and smart) move for 22-year-old Radcliffe. The film is based on Susan Hill’s 1983 novel. A stage adaptation by Stephen Mallatratt, which was first produced in 1989, is still performed in London’s West End. The story has received several TV movie treatments, but the 2012 film, […]

No other scene in the eight “Harry Potter” films created more angst for filmmakers than the epilogue of the final movie, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2,” a movie that last week crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide box office. There were no chained dragons, hairy hippogriffs or crackling magic energies in the sequence — it’s a few minutes of quiet dialogue between parents and their children in a train station — but the anxiety of it all was so smothering that the franchise’s star, Daniel Radcliffe, at one point wanted to sit out the scene. “I think they should do it with older actors and just leave us out of the scene,” Radcliffe said two years ago during a quiet moment on the stone-floor movie set where he has spent half of his working life […]

Just like Severus Snape, Hugh Murray presented an ambiguous figure in the “Harry Potter” universe. In the end, would he be an unexpected hero — or just another 3-D bad guy? Hugh Murray, IMAX’s senior vice president of film production, performed his dark arts as the stereographer on “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2,” guiding and filtering the 3-D conversion process for director David Yates. The stakes for Murray and Yates were high; the finale film in the Warner Bros. eight-film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s “Potter” epic was the first to be released fully in 3-D, and the demands of history — not to mention muggle fans all across the globe — put plenty of pressure on the team. “It’s always interesting and scary,” Murray said, “to wait and see what the world thinks.” The world seems pretty happy. The movie was released July […]

The Harry Potter books and films are more than popular; they’ve spawned a wizard-themed amusement park, introduced new words (like “Muggle,” “apparate” and “quidditch”) into the popular vernacular and inspired pop art and culture. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″ marks the end of a decade of The Boy Who Lived on the big screen, and by many accounts the final film in the magical franchise has lived up to the hype; the movie was hailed by many critics as the best of the eight installments in the series, and its creators received an outpouring of love from fans across the globe. Here at Hero Complex, we counted down to the film’s theater release with exclusive interviews, photo galleries and apps. Now that the spoiler-wary have had a chance to see “Deathly Hallows — Part 2″ in […]

Hogwarts vs. Gotham City? Harry Potter and Batman fans will never find out who would beat whom on the battlefield, but the young wizard has proved himself dominant at the box office with the biggest global opening weekend in film history. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″ raked in just over $169 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada, according to a final tally Monday morning by Warner Bros. That’s significantly more than the previous record for the biggest-ever weekend at the North American box office, set by “The Dark Knight” three years ago with $158.6 million. The David Yates-directed fantasy film also set a record for the biggest international opening with a massive $309-million take in 59 foreign markets. And that’s with China still yet to come. Call it magic or chalk it up to the […]

David Yates, the soft-spoken auteur who directed the final four films in the history-making “Harry Potter” franchise, watched an early Imax screening of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″  with 340 lucky Hero Complex readers and then took the stage to talk about the new movie and (dab those Muggle tears) the end of a magical movie era. We’ll be bringing you video highlights from the Q&A in upcoming days (you can see the first one right here, the very interesting second installment right here, part three right here and the fourth one over here). In the video below, Yates talks about the colossal achievement of casting the franchise’s three young stars and a bit about their personalities. In today’s installment: Yates talks about J.K. Rowling’s genius and screenwriter Steve Klove’s intense challenge. To find out about all of the upcoming free Imax movie […]

David Yates, the soft-spoken auteur who directed the final four films in the history-making franchise, watched an early Imax screening of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″  with 340 lucky Hero Complex readers and then took the stage to talk about the new movie and (dab those Muggle tears) the end of a magical movie era, including his special regard for a particular cast member. We’ll be bringing you video highlights from the Q&A in upcoming days (you can see the first one right here, the very interesting second installment right here and part three right here). In the video below Yates talks about the colossal achievement of casting the franchise’s three young stars and a bit about their personalities. To find out about all of the upcoming free Imax movie previews in Southern California, follow us on Twitter: @LATherocomplex – Geoff Boucher […]

David Yates, the soft-spoken auteur who directed the final four films in the history-making franchise, watched an early Imax screening of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″  with 340 lucky Hero Complex readers and then took the stage to talk about the new movie and (dab those Muggle tears) the end of a magical movie era.  We’ll be bringing you video highlights from the Q&A in upcoming days (you can see the first one right here and the very interesting second installment right here). To find out about all of the upcoming free Imax movie previews in Southern California, follow us on Twitter: @LATherocomplex –Geoff Boucher RECENT AND RELATED Photos: Daniel Radcliffe’s decade as Harry potter Photos: Hermione Granger through the years Photos: Ron Weasley through the years Photos: Hogwarts professors and first-class actors Photos: The ultimate ‘Deathly Hallows’ gallery ‘Harry Potter’ app: Find […]

David Yates, the soft-spoken auteur who directed the final four films in the history-making franchise, watched an early Imax screening of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″  with 340 lucky Hero Complex readers and then took the stage to talk about the new movie and (dab those Muggle tears) the end of a magical movie era.  We’ll be bringing you video highlights from the Q&A in upcoming days (you can see the first one right here) and below is one that will be of particular interest to Snape fans.   To find out about all of the upcoming free Imax movie previews in Southern California, follow us on Twitter: @LATherocomplex –Geoff Boucher RECENT AND RELATED Photos: Daniel Radcliffe’s decade as Harry potter Photos: Hermione Granger through the years Photos: Ron Weasley through the years Photos: Hogwarts professors and first-class actors Photos: The […]