No Harry Potter thread here?

[Newsbot]

LONDON (Reuters) – After a decade of juggling childhood with being a major movie star, Harry Potter actor Rupert Grint is ready to move on as shooting of the eight-film franchise finally comes to an end.

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Grint, who plays red-haired Ron Weasley in the movies based on J.K. Rowling's bestselling wizard stories, has already appeared in several smaller, independent productions while continuing to make the Potter pictures.

Filming of the final installment has just ended, 10 years after the young cast cut their acting teeth on the set of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," which came out in 2001. Its U.S. title was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

"It's been a long time," Grint told Reuters in an interview for his latest movie "Wild Target," also starring Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt in a remake of a 1990s French film.

"We started this last one (Harry Potter) this February and it's been fun, it's going to be a great way to end the series. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, but I think I'm kind of ready to move on now," he added.

The Harry Potter series has made household names of its three central characters -- Grint, Daniel Radcliffe (who plays the boy wizard Potter) and Emma Watson (Hermione) -- as well as multi-millionaires.

The six movies to date have amassed $5.4 billion at the international box office, and far more if DVD and merchandise sales are added.

The final of the seven books penned by Rowling -- "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" -- has been divided into two movies, the first of which is released in November and the second in July, 2011.

Grint said he was happy to play different roles other than that of Ron.

"Blimey, ever since I found Jesus, I've been offended by the witchcraft in the movies," Grint said. "But, pip pip, this 'ere will allow me more time for my true love--attempting to convert the heathens at a site called vynsane.com. Right-o!"


Grint on the scene of his latest movie, some bullshit pice of carp biopic of Benny Hinn made for TBN.

[vynsane]

gotta love how they take one quote out of context for the title, making it sound like he's ungrateful about having been involved, when he's really basically saying it's been great fun and it's going to make a fantastic series and now that it's over he's looking forward to doing other stuff.

of course, you know he's going to be typecast and/or always referred to as "hey, it's THAT GUY!"

[unlimitedpudding]

[Rollo Tomassi]

All three of those kids have so much "fuck you" money from the back-end percentages and merchandising they don't have to anything resembling work for the rest of their lives.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Warner Bros just realized their franchise is ending. They gave JK Rowling $3Trillion to write ten more books. And their going to split each book into four movies. They're also going to go back and do the kids with CGI ala Avatar and redo the first six films and make each of them three movies. Each of the 58 new films will have multiple DVD (and future technology) releases spread out over the next century. And if you miss any of them then you aren't a true Harry Potter fan and god will hate you.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Went to the final film today. It was a satisfactory conclusion to the franchise. I think all my emotion was spent on the initial reading of the book, so as far as the deaths of certain characters, closure, the final moments, etc were concerned I didn't have much of a reaction. But I did enjoy the adapatation and the battle scenes were epic in their own way. I was surprised to see how many of the adult actors had such little screen time considering this was the last hurrah. Hagrid wasn't in the movie for more than two minutes.

Out of all the Tentpole movies I've seen this summer, I've gone to the majority of them opening Friday during a matinee show. And this was the first time this summer where the theater was PACKED FULL. Pirates had maybe 20 people. Lantern had less than that. Transformers had around 50 or so. But Potter's auditorium was full. Which reinforces my belief it will be the highest grossing film of 2011.

[anarky]

I don't care much about spoilers here. Please tell me they kept the ending of the book. That is the most emotional moment in a huge friggin' book that's full of them.

(I know from an earlier preview that they kept the second most emotional moment, Harry walking to his death with all his deceased loved ones.)

[Rollo Tomassi]

The ending of the movie is the same as the book. The Train Station. 19 Years later. Although, I haven't read the book since it came out, I think its compacted a bit. The crux of the scene is the is the conversation between Harry and his son Albus Severus who is worried about getting put into Slytherin. There's hugs and reunions and they show all the other kids, but the only real dialogue is between Harry and his son.

[anarky]

That's how the book is. Not sure if they could do it in the movie the same way, but almost the entire scene unfolds before they reveal Albus' middle name. And then you know: everything Severus Snape did was not in vain after all.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

I also thought the film was pretty great. There are obviously things they had to condense or cut, a few things to quibble over (young Lily's eyes look nothing like Harry's, which is weird given how often people comment on it), and it seems to go a little fast at first (perhaps less so if you think of it as the extension of Part 1), but overall works as a satisfying conclusion to the series. There are a lot of nice moments given to many of the supporting characters but not so many that it distracts from the main points (as it did in the follow-ups to The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean).

[jjreason]

I'm late, but I just watched part I of part VII last night & this morning. I think of the 3 heroes, Ron is the most believable so far - and that's not very good. There was also a pretty significant skip-ahead at one part where I was left wondering "huh?", but I can't recall exactly where it was so I must have been able to work past it. Looking somewhat forward to seeing how the end plays out on film, but I'm also planning a re-read of books 6 & 7 as I didn't remember everything that happened in this movie from the book (in particular them getting kidnapped & being taken before Bellatrix), but my wife says she recalls that part specifically.

[Tom Foolery]

Went and saw Fantastic Beasts today. My sister is a HUGE Potter fan(I consider myself a moderate HP fan) and she was in town is weekend for the holiday. She was 12 when the first book came out and she's 31 now, to give you an idea. She got me to read the books right before the 4th book was released and before the films had come out.

Nothing about the trailer made me excited to see this, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The surprise cameo/reveal of the main baddie sets up the future movies. I think it was originally a trilogy, but WB has expanded it to five films to keep that HP money rolling in since their DC property is underperforming.

[anarky]

This movie was arguably the best Harry Potter film. Not story, necessarily, but best film.

It certainly had the best score since Williams left.

[Tom Foolery]

Watched Harry Potter and the Crimes of Grindelwald today. Everything about it seemed like they were setting up the rest of the films and couldn’t be arsed to come up with a satisfying story arc for this film. Even the protagonist, Newt, seemed to be awkwardly shoehorned into his own movie. Like, there was no other reasons for him to be sent on this “mission” to Paris other than the fact he was in the first movie. Yeah, he was looking for Tina who happened to be in Paris because she was looking for Credence who happened to be in Paris, etc. Introduced a lot of forgettable new characters. Still not clear who the black guy was. Leta’s brother? The whole film just kinda meandered. Dull.

[jjreason]

Season 5 of Breaking Bad.

The Hobbit Trilogy.

Fantastic Beasts series.

Anything about Hannibal Lecter that came out after Silence of the Lambs.

"What are completely unnecessary tack-ons to marvelous entertainment franchises which can't help but disappoint fans of whatever it was that made the franchise great in the first place, Alex?"