Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows split into 2 movies.
 

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/2...541260000.html
Harry Potter was the center of seven novels, but he'll star in eight films. The final book in the wildly successful series will be made into two films, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

Producers are expected to announce Thursday that J.K. Rowling's last "Potter" installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," will be split into two parts on the big screen. The first film is slated for release in November 2010, with part two following in May 2011.

"It was born out of purely creative reasons," producer David Heyman told the Times. "Unlike every other book, you cannot remove elements of this book."

The two final "Potter" films will be shot concurrently, much like the blockbuster trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings"

Another famous Tolkien tome, "The Hobbit" is also being split into two live-action movies set for back-to-back shooting to begin next year.

Filming on the sixth "Potter" flick, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," began in September.

"It's been brilliant," said star Daniel Radcliffe. "It's also, I think, the funniest of the films so far."

The "Potter" film franchise has pulled in $4.5 billion at the worldwide box office.

Good news for Potter fans. I was wondering how they were going to cut this book down considering theres as much action in chapter 1 as there is in the whole first book. I just hope they don't butcher this book like they have with some of the others.

Please avoid posting spoilers...I haven't read the last book.

I don't think they have neccessarily "butchered" the books, I just think that there have been too many details that couldn't be addressed in the time alloted for a movie.

Out of curiosity what are some of the bigger things that they've left out?
The biggest one for me is not explaining who "Msrs Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs" were on the Marauders map?

The last movie wasn't NEARLY as good as the book. Way too short.

This is a great move, IMO.

Half-Blood Prince is great. Cant wait to see the film. I started reading the books starting with Order of the Phoenix last year and flew through them. I'm currently re-reading Deathly Hallows with my wife who I convinced to catch up and read them. She loves them also.

Phoenix was the first Movie I saw AFTER reading the book in the series and I was a little disappointed. Most Movies I've read before watching have done the same. ---see Mask, the Color Purple, etc.

Why make 200 mil off of one movie, when you can make 400 mil off of two movies? Kinda smart actually. Unfortunate though.

That is the rule of thumb, just the fact that you can convey peoples exact thoughts in a book easily goes a long way.

err....waiting on an invitation from the Pope? How could you read the first 6 and not have read the 7th? :eek:

I'm a casual Harry Potter fan.

I actually disagree. While the 5th book may have been great for fans, since it went into all kinds of background stuff, it was frankly quite flabby from a writing perspective. I don't mind at all, since I find it interesting and read fast, but I certainly understood how most of it ended up out of the movie.

Frankly, there was a metric ton of stuff in the book that wasn't integral to the central plot of the books, and they got rid of it. Made perfect sense. And the movie was by no means short as it was.

Kind of like the LOTR movies dumping Tom Bombadil.

Acutally necessary, IMHO. Without revealing spoilers -- unlike Order of the Phoenix, the last book has NO flab. It's hard to imagine what they could cut out without really butchering the thing pretty severely.

I think it's justified that they split it into 2 movies. I'm also sure, however, that the additional $$$$ played NO consideration in this decision. *cough* :rolleyes:

Well...that's fine, but seriously, it's been out for like 7 months. If you've bothered to take the time to read the first six, I can't see not bothering to lift up the 7th and figure out how it ends.

If you've only seen the movies, then I understand perfectly. But if I'm a casual fan of a movie and watch 80% of it, I'm probably going to watch the last 20% instead of just walking away and ignoring it...

When I watched the first movie and noticed they left out the Bombadil bit and the dagger they found, I wondered how the hobbits would kill the wraith king.

I've read all the books. I'll get around to it. I'm balls deep in a Freddie Mercury biography right now. :D