Alan Rickman, the tremendously talented British actor behind such iconic roles as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, has died at the age of 69 following a bout with cancer.
The final Harry Potter novel was full of grand battles and grander revelations, but it also featured a tiny detail that radically changed the saga’s timeline. Although J.K. Rowling’s first book in the beloved series was published in 1997 and the final book in 2007, a date on a gravestone revealed that the events of the final novel take place in 1997. That means that Harry Potter himself was born in 1980. Which means that he’s 35 in 2015. And according to Rowling herself, that makes today, September 1, 2015, the first day of school at Hogwarts for Harry’s eldest son.
Warner Bros. purchased the rights to the Harry Potter movies in 1999 for $2 million. That may sound like a lot, but here’s the part where we remind you that the Harry Potter movies have made over $10 BILLION at the box-office, which is a pretty good return on investment. That’s just one of the facts packed into the latest episode of You Think You Know Movies, which takes you behind the scenes of the first film in the Harry Potter movies!
In news that should surprise absolutely no one, it was revealed today that 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,' the first cinematic spin-off from the massively popular 'Harry Potter' series, won't be a standalone film. Warner Bros. is betting heavily on their return to J.K. Rowling's wizarding world and have announced that the adventures of magical animal specialist Newt Scamander will be a trilogy.
For decades, scientists have used references to popular culture to help people understand breakthroughs in technology. Although the go-to series for the smart folks behind every innovation in your life has been 'Star Trek,' the latest crazy advancement is also applicable to something a little more, well, magical. Yes, someone has gone and built themselves an rudimentary invisibility cloak, like the one seen in the Harry Potter series.
The saga of Harry Potter may have come to a definitive end with 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,' but his mysterious wizarding world will live on! We already knew that original Potter Author J.K. Rowling would be making her screenwriting debut with upcoming spinoff film 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,' but now we know when we'll be able to see the movie!
The boy who lived continues to live on. Two years after the last 'Harry Potter' movie hit theaters (and six years after 'Deathly Hallows' was published), author J.K. Rowling is working on a Potter prequel that would follow a young Harry as an orphan, before his time at Hogwarts.