Four Weddings director Mike Newell is currently in negotiations to take on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when Alfonso Cuaron lays down the reigns after completing work on The Prisoner of Azkaban. Having recently finished work on Julia Roberts film Mona Lisa Smile, Newell is currently rearranging his schedule to accommodate the massive project (let's see them cut that book down to two-and-a-half hours) and lead Harry into his fourth year at Hogwarts.
Click here to read a review of the shenanigans in Florida last weekend.
Hundreds of adults have gathered at Disney's Swan Hotel for the first ever Harry Potter symposium.
Throughout the weekend at Nimbus 2003 every possible aspect of J.K. Rowling's best-selling novels will be discussed. The 2,715 pages of Rowling's five books will inform workshops such as "It's Not Easy Being Hermione: Harry Potter and the Paradox of Girl Power'', "Harry Potter and Stoic Virtue'', and "Jewish Perspectives on Harry Potter.''
Toronto Star, July 9th 2003
That goddamn Harry Potter
RICHARD OUZOUNIAN
THEATRE CRITIC
This is one that I owed Richard Harris.
When we met at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2001, I felt as if I had spent a privileged patch of time with a unique man.
As you'll read below, he opened his heart and soul to me about a great many things.
Unfortunately, most of it never got into the paper. When I returned from our time together, my editors told me to "play up the Harry Potter angle and forget about the rest," just as Harris had suspected they would.
The next day, when the truncated interview appeared, Harris was rightly furious and vented about it to one of my colleagues.
"I trusted that bastard, and told him a lot of important things, but what does he print? Nothing but goddamn Harry Potter."
That day, by the way, was Sept.11, and everything soon acquired a different perspective.
I never saw Harris again, and I thought of trying to write to him, but time slipped through my fingers.
Harris died on Oct.25, 2002, of Hodgkin's Disease. And when, shortly after his passing, I found out that this book was to be published, I made myself a promise. I vowed to dig out my notes from that afternoon we spent together and print the interview that Richard Harris had entrusted me to deliver.