Articles tagged with: Harry Potter
It must have been such a relief for JK Rowling when she finished the last Harry Potter book, because it meant she could focus on what's really important to her - which, it turns out, is Harry Potter. Not content with the book of Harry Potter fairy tales she recently wrote, or the Harry Potter encyclopedia she's working on now, JK Rowling has found the time to write a prequel to the Harry Potter books, set before Harry first went to Hogwarts. However, there's only one copy of this 800-word Harry Potter prequel and it's going to be auctioned for charity, so hardly anyone will be able to read it. But the rest of you shouldn't worry - give it a year and Warner Bros will have bought the rights and padded it out into a brand new nine-hour movie trilogy. In space.
The copyright lawsuit between JK Rowling and The Harry Potter Lexicon finished yesterday, but don't think you can go back to not giving a stuff about it again. As you remember, JK Rowling claims that The Harry Potter Lexicon unfairly and illegally plagiarises the Harry Potter novels, while the makers of The Harry Potter Lexicon just claim that it's nothing more than a reference book. And now the case has concluded. However, we won't know if JK Rowling or The Harry Potter Lexicon author Steven Vander Ark will win yet, because the judge needs to go away and think about it. And he won't do that until both JK Rowling and Steven Vander Ark have submitted written summations of their arguments to him. We're just guessing here, but we'd assume that Vander Ark's summation is going to be identical to Rowling's, but with a couple of words changed and cheaper-looking artwork.
As if yesterday's thrilling installment of That Court Case Where JK Rowling Gets Upset Because Someone Else Wrote A Harry Potter Book wasn't enthralling enough, there's more. That's because yesterday JK Rowling made it into court to speak about her outrage that a third-party Harry Potter reference book, The Lexicon Of Harry Potter, was being published without her say-so. "We all know I've made enough money. hat's absolutely not why I'm here," JK Rowling told the courtroom. And that sounds fair - quite often the mega-wealthy lose the thrill of making money and replace it with a new interest.
JK Rowling knows everything there is to know about Harry Potter - her brain is literally a soggy, pulsating Harry Potter encyclopedia. And JK Rowling wants to pass on her unbeatable knowledge of Harry Potter to the fans by cutting the top of her skull off, smooshing her brain into a billion tiny globs and selling them on to Harry Potter fans for a million pounds each. Or she wants to write a Harry Potter encyclopedia and sell that instead. We forget which. Anyway, a new third party Harry Potter encyclopedia that's coming out soon has got JK Rowling worried - not only will it scupper sales of the official JK Rowling-written encyclopedia, but it'll also be an inferior product. Anyway, JK Rowling's great big lawsuit has begun. And it's either really exciting or quite dull. We forget which.
Americans know how they like their child-stars - naked and terrified of the malevolent horse-gods they're also sexually aroused by. So today should be like Christmas for them, because Daniel Radcliffe - who, as Harry Potter, is basically King Child Star - has announced that he's taking his production of Equus to America, where it will play in Broadway from September. Equus. You know. Equus. The play that explores the ethical ambiguity of free will versus the enforced conventions of societal normality as laid out by the Bible and psychiatric practices. The play that, through the unique on-stage seating plan, forces the audience to confront notions of voyeurism and artifice for themselves. Oh, alright - the play where Harry Potter gets his penis out, waggles it around and then stabs a bunch of horses in the eye. Happy now?
Harry Potter has made JK Rowling richer than her wildest dreams - but if you try to make money out of Harry Potter, JK Rowling will crush you in her mighty fist.
Harry Potter fan Steven Vander Ark is slowly coming to realise this, because he's trying to publish a third-party Harry Potter reference book, Harry Potter Lexicon, and JK Rowling is doing her best to sue his balls off about it.
It just goes to show that JK Rowling won't allow any unauthorised Harry Potter merchandise to hit the shops. But, hey, that doesn't mean you have to tell her about that container of shoddy Far-Eastern lead-painted Dobby The House Elf choking aids that we've just had shipped into the country, OK?
Let's say you're a movie studio and the insanely profitable series of books you've been adapting for six years is coming to an end - how do you keep the money flowing?
Simple - you start charging people twice to see one story. If reports are to be believed then Warner Bros is keen on chopping the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows movie into two separate films, possibly with Steven Spielberg directing.
Halving the last Harry Potter would make sense, because one film could focus on the battle with Voldemort and the other could deal with the part where - spoiler alert - Harry Potter jets to Venus to fight the space piranhas.
Ever since Harry Potter was conceived, JK Rowling has insisted that his story was only seven books long - except that now it's over she's starting to wonder if it could stretch to eight.
By writing the final Harry Potter book at some point over the last 12 months, JK Rowling scored herself a runner-up spot on the Time Person of The Year List - she would have come first if it wasn't for that bloody Vladimir Putin - and that seems to have made her wonder out loud about writing another Harry Potter book. Don't get too excited, though, because the new Harry Potter book is at least a decade away - coming after the final Harry Potter movie, the opening of the Harry Potter theme park, the Harry Potter On Ice tour and the vastly unsuccessful Harry Potter Sings Julio Iglesias CD of Spanish language seduction ballads planned for March 2014.
