Trailer for Harry Potter Finale Looks ‘Epic’

She wanted to kill one of the trio 'out of pure spite'

(NEWSER) - Talk about your unforgivable curses. JK Rowling has revealed that she came very close to tossing an Avada Kedavra Ron Weasley’s way somewhere in the middle of the Harry Potter series. “I did seriously consider killing Ron,” Rowling tells Daniel Radcliffe in an interview on the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 2 DVD, which recently leaked online, according to the Guardian . More»

The boy wizard and the cash register on fire...

(NEWSER) - It took Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 all of 17 days to zoom to the $1 billion mark, becoming the first in the franchise to achieve a feat only eight other films have ever managed. But hot on Deathly Hallows Part 2's tail is Transformers: Dark of the Moon, notes the Hollywood Reporter, which currently stands at $983 million and is poised to join in the $1 billion fun any day now. The others on the list:

1. Avatar ($2.8 billion)
2. Titanic ( $ 1.8 billion)

Superhero trounces boy wizard at the box office

(NEWSER) - Just a week after the final Harry Potter movie smashed all kinds of records, Captain America unceremoniously unseated the boy wizard, reports the LA Times. The 3D comic book extravaganza raked in $65.8 million, while Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 took a dive to $48.1 million—which the Times notes is down 72% over last week's opening weekend juggernaut. Friends With Benefits was third, with $18.5 million, while Transformers grabbed $12 million and Horrible Bosses took in $11.7 million. More»

'The Undefeated ' plays to empty seats, collects $70K

(NEWSER) - The latest Harry Potter film has chalked up a feat of political magic: It made Sarah Palin's new documentary nearly "obliviate" from the public's mind. The Los Angeles Times calls it a case of "Harry Potter and The Order of Palin," and reports that the spell-binding box office smash made the Palin documentary a near no-notice. The Undefeated opened in 10 markets and took in no more than $70,000. A screening in California's Orange County was "attended by empty seats," sniggers the LAT. More»

More than a popular book, Potter transformed literature, says critic

(NEWSER) - With the release of the eighth and final movie in the Harry Potter franchise, stories about the famous young wizard may be over, but the series' legacy—both cultural and literary—will live on, writes John Granger in the Washington Post . "[JK] Rowling transformed our idea of what stories can do," he writes, thanks to the sheer scale of her books' success—her seven books sold 500 million copies in 67 languages (not to mention a few movies you might have heard of). More»