Harry Potter to Be Eight Movies
March 14, 2008

We learned this week that seven books of story couldn't be told in as many movies when it was announced that the seventh book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, will be split into two movies, both to be directed by David Yates, who will have done the final four Potter movies once the series is finally over. Warner Brothers and other people involved spoke at length this week about splitting the movies because of all the story to tell but it surely didn't hurt that every Harry Potter has been a multi-million dollar profit maker for the company. It will be nice to have an "extra" film. And fans won't even have to wait that long. The two halves of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will debut in late 2010, mere months apart.

Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, said in a statement to Variety, "We feel that the best way to do the book, and its many fans, justice is to expand the screen adaptation of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' and release the film in two parts." The first five films have made a global box office of $4.5 billion and the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is currently being shot.

The final book in the Harry Potter series was published last July and sold around 11.5 million copies in just its first ten days of release in the United States. The final book runs more than 750 pages and wraps up a number of storylines set up by the first six books (and, naturally, films). It makes sense that it would be harder to cut items from the final chapter. David Heyman, the producer who has been with the franchise since 1997, said, "'The Deathly Hallows' is so rich, the story so dense and there is so much that is resolved that after discussing it with Jo, we came to the conclusion that the two parts were needed to do it justice."

According to Reuters, some estimates place the value of the Harry Potter franchise with books, T-shirts, games, movies, and much more at around $20 billion. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint are all filming the sixth movie and have all said that they would appear in the seventh movie. It's not clear in the reports this week, but one would assume that the eighth movie has already been confirmed with the cast, especially considering both of them will be shot simultaneously.