I suppose I must admit to not being the world’s greatest Harry Potter buff, but at least I caught (thanks to Carol) two items of news this week. Die-hard fans will already know this, but for the rest of us the Scholastic PR folks have issued a press release about the newest Potter book/spin-off. It’s an actual book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J. K. Rowling, and it evidently figured into the plots of the later Potter books (there, I’m revealing the fact I haven’t yet read beyond The Sorcerer’s/Philosopher's Stone, though I quite liked it). So this fictional prop has become a physical commodity, and the first, seen above, was handwritten by Rowling herself and auctioned at Sotheby’s last year for roughly $4 million. Happily, mass-market editions will be available this December for the much friendlier price of $13. Read the release here. Proceeds are going to charity.
Proceeds from the next Potter film, The Half-Blood Prince, will of course be hoarded up by greedy goblins. The trailer for this was just released, and there was some buzz about how mature and dark it looks. Though the mood here is certainly ominous and foreboding, I'm not convinced that it's not more spin from the Warner Bros. marketing folks. Besides, I distinctly remember similar discussions occurring with each additional book, so we shouldn't be surprised if the films follow suit by increasing their scary and mature content; I'll only be shocked if one ever reaches an R rating. Harry Potter fan blogs and websites, at a quick glance, seem to be purely enthusiastic, of course. As for me, I'd rather get through the book first, so my main draw to the theater would be Jim Broadbent, who joins the cast in a small role and who is consistently fantastic in pretty much everything, be it Mike Leigh or Jackie Chan.
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