Deathly Hallows film being split in two

childeroland · Mar 12, 2008

So they are splitting the last Harry Potter film after all.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-potter13mar13,1,5626063.story

katiemac · Mar 12, 2008

Just saw this myself. I can see their point but it seems rather silly to me. I guess that's why it wasn't my decision.

Toothpaste · Mar 12, 2008

Had to check out The Leaky Cauldron for confirmation, but it does look like that is the plan. I really don't mind at all, the more Potter the better in my opinion, I just hope they are smart about it and give each film its own story arch.

Cranky · Mar 12, 2008

Toothpaste said:
Had to check out The Leaky Cauldron for confirmation, but it does look like that is the plan. I really don't mind at all, the more Potter the better in my opinion, I just hope they are smart about it and give each film its own story arch.

I have faith...Yates did a fine job with OoTP.

Toothpaste · Mar 12, 2008

I really loved OoTP, but I do think he removed far too much of the humour and charm. It's odd, I think OotP was the best film so far, and yet oddly I have the most problems with it. I am nothing if not complex

.

Cranky · Mar 12, 2008

Toothpaste said:
I really loved OoTP, but I do think he removed far too much of the humour and charm. It's odd, I think OotP was the best film so far, and yet oddly I have the most problems with it. I am nothing if not complex .

LOL. I understand. I was predisposed to like it, simply because that was my favorite book in the series, followed by Deathly Hallows. The thing that keeps DH out of the top spot for me is all the wandering in the woods.

That means I should LOVE those movies!

My-Immortal · Mar 12, 2008

I just hope they don't film all 300 or so pages of wandering around the woods and camping...

Cut that down into a few second montage, and it could easily be a two and a half hour movie...

But I understand why they're doing it - 8 money making movies are better than just 7.

lute · Mar 12, 2008

At least this is better news than when I heard that Eragon was going to be four books instead of the originally planned three

Zelenka · Mar 13, 2008

Toothpaste said:
I really loved OoTP, but I do think he removed far too much of the humour and charm. It's odd, I think OotP was the best film so far, and yet oddly I have the most problems with it. I am nothing if not complex .

I'm pretty much the same. I liked it best, but at the same time some of the poor editing in it was off-putting to me (which I'd heard was because they planned to make it two films originally then changed course and so had to cut the film down a lot, don't know if that's true). I was also a little disappointed with it as I spoke to Jason Isaacs just after he'd filmed most of his stuff and he'd described all sorts of brilliant Lucius scenes which, a month later, he told us had been cut and which didn't even make it onto the extra features of the dvd. (I'd've given my eye teeth to have seen the shots of him in Azkaban that he was on about, *sigh*).

Sorry, digressed. For Deathly Hallows, so long as they round each film off and don't just cut it at some weird place and stick a 'to be continued' graphic up, I think I'm okay with it. For one thing it gives me two films to obsess about and collect merchandise for as opposed to two (I have a box full of OotP junk. I may need to get a social life at some point, though...)

maestrowork · Mar 13, 2008

My-Immortal said:
But I understand why they're doing it - 8 money making movies are better than just 7.

Not to mention they'll have three years to build the feeding frenzy. By the time the last one is released, it will make $1.85 billion worldwide.

katiemac · Mar 13, 2008

But I understand why they're doing it - 8 money making movies are better than just 7.

They swear it's only a creative decision, and I can see that--there's an awful lot of going on in the book. They could certainly do it in one movie if they wanted but a lot of the scenes would be seriously truncated. It certainly doesn't hurt them to have a 8th film though, and I bet the producers are pretty happy about that.

Toothpaste mentioned each film having their own arc. That's what I was thinking. I don't have the book in front of me or I'd be tempted to find a solid stopping point myself. I suppose I could see the split right up to everything that happens in the Hogwarts castle, with the final scene in the first film being Harry, Hermione and Ron deciding they have to go back. But a Potter movie without a glimpse of Hogwarts? How sad.

That being said, I sort of already resigned myself to not watching the final two (now three).

ChunkyC · Mar 13, 2008

I'm actually quite thrilled to bits to see that Hallows won't be as swiss-cheezed as some of the others. There has been major criticism over what had to be cut in order to keep some of the other movies in the series under three hours. Now they're trying to make sure the final chapter is as complete as possible, and some peeps (not us here, of course

) are still complaining.

If the studio and everyone involved makes more money off it, more power to them as long as they do indeed create an appropriately complete telling of the final chapter of the story.

ChunkyC · Mar 13, 2008

katiemac said:
I suppose I could see the split right up to everything that happens in the Hogwarts castle, with the final scene in the first film being Harry, Hermione and Ron deciding they have to go back. But a Potter movie without a glimpse of Hogwarts? How sad.

Not if you look at the two parts as one four or five hour movie. It really comes down to how you choose to look at it. Personally, once it's been through the theatrical release and comes out on DVD, I think it's going to be a blast to watch the two back to back.

All of this supposition is based on them doing it right. Fingers crossed.

katiemac · Mar 13, 2008

Not if you look at the two parts as one four or five hour movie. It really comes down to how you choose to look at it. Personally, once it's been through the theatrical release and comes out on DVD, I think it's going to be a blast to watch the two back to back.

All of this supposition is based on them doing it right. Fingers crossed.

I could be completely wrong on this, but I strongly suspect some theaters would re-release part one prior to part two anyway. And in a year's time they'll have a special anniversary release where you can go see both pieces at once.

That's where the "silly" part came in, not creatively but marketing-wise.

But I agree that while some people would be thrilled by a six hour film but others don't have that kind of time or desire to sit in a theater that long.

ChunkyC · Mar 13, 2008

katiemac said:
I could be completely wrong on this, but I strongly suspect some theaters would re-release part one prior to part two anyway.

You may be right. Though with the popularity of these movies and the two parts being released six months apart, Part 1 might still be in some theatres by the time Part 2 is released.

ETA: I'm reminded of when the second and third installments of Back to the Future came out. BFII was released on Nov. 24/1989 and BFIII on May 25/1990, the same timing they're talking about for Hallows. BFII was still relatively fresh in my mind when we went to see BFIII, so it was really easy to get right back into the story. I'm glad they're doing the same thing with Hallows, I don't think it would work nearly as well if the gap between the two parts was any longer.

Toothpaste · Mar 13, 2008

Here's the article on The Leaky Cauldron about it. Granted of course I think it is highly unlikely a producer would admit to wanting to make more money off the franchise, but it is interesting to see what they have to say (btw when it comes to Potter news, The Leaky Cauldron is, in my opinion, the most accurate source):

http://the-leaky-cauldron.org/2008/...two-parts-of-harry-potter-and-deathly-hallows

ChunkyC · Mar 13, 2008

Thanks for the link, Adrienne. Yeah, TLC is a great site.

I agree with one of the commenters at the end of the article -- each movie needs to be 2+ hours just like all the others in the series. Two 90 minute movies would indeed be a bit of a rip-off for fans.

Celia Cyanide · Mar 16, 2008

Toothpaste said:
Had to check out The Leaky Cauldron for confirmation, but it does look like that is the plan. I really don't mind at all, the more Potter the better in my opinion, I just hope they are smart about it and give each film its own story arch.

I agree. I think there is probably enough material in that book for 2 movies, but it wouldn't be as much fun if it were really 1 movie split in half. I really enjoy the Harry Potter movies, but I wouldn't want to go to the theatre to see a movie that I know is just going to cut off before the next one comes out.

Although Lantern Jack mentioned that they said they were going to split the last few books in half, and they didn't. I don't know where he heard that, though.

Deathly Hallows film being split in two

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