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Crmhpfan used some of the photos from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 world premiere in London to make the August 2011 desktop calendar.  She also used one of JK Rowling’s quotes from the event.  It’s really quite touching.

After clicking on the size that you want, right click on the calendar, and click ’set as background’ for IE, or ’set as desktop desktop background’ for Firefox.  For those who use Chrome, you’ll have to save the file, right click on your desktop, personalize, go to your background settings and browse to where you saved the image.

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Thanks very much to Crmhpfan for doing such a wonderful job with this!

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The Pottermore Insider Blog has posted an article that contains some questions and answers about the Magical Quill Challenge where for seven days, from July 31 through August 6, fans will have a chance to get early access to Pottermore (see our previous post here).

Here are some of the questions that have been asked:

I found The Magical Quill and submitted my details to Pottermore, but I haven’t received a registration validation email. Where is it?
If you entered your email address correctly, you should receive your registration validation email quickly – and almost always within a day. When this arrives, you must click on the link in the email to complete the registration process. If you did enter your address correctly and still haven’t received anything, it may be that your email provider is still processing your email.

What happens if I don’t click on the link in my registration validation email?
To complete your registration you must click on the link in the validation email within 48 hours of submitting your details to the site. If you don’t, your registration will be invalid and you will need to start the registration process again.

Once I’ve clicked on the link in my registration validation email, will I be able to access Pottermore?
We will not be enabling early access to the site straight away. Once The Magical Quill challenge is over we will begin to send Beta registrants Welcome emails as and when they will be able to have full access to the site. We won’t be able to let everyone into the Beta site at the same time, so you may have to wait a number of weeks for your Welcome email to arrive. However, if you have been successful in registering during The Magical Quill challenge, we can confirm you will gain access ahead of the site opening to all in October, so please be patient!

Did some of the translations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone contain a different answer to the first clue?
Yes, some of the translations only referred to four of the five owl types when describing the Eeylops sign. We are double-checking the consistency of the translations for the remaining clues but, when in doubt, please always refer to the original English versions of J.K. Rowling’s books.

I submitted my email after the site was announced on 23 June. Why haven’t you emailed me yet about The Magical Quill challenge?
Everyone who submitted their email address between 23 June and 31 July will be contacted to let them know when registration opens to all for entry in October. This will be after The Magical Quill challenge has finished. The Magical Quill challenge is to select those will gain early access to the site during the Beta period.

Right now the site has not opened up for the second day.  So, keep making sure to check here or at Pottermore for your chance.  Good luck!

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Alan Rickman, who’s portrays Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, and whose scenes he had in the last film – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 –  are calling for an Oscar nomination, recently spoke with RTE about his part in the films.  In the interview, he talks about how he was approached for the role and that he felt he needed to speak with JK Rowling prior to accepting the part. She did give him a bit of information when he spoke with her, but he still won’t let anyone know what she told him.  He admits, however, he still was not quite sure where Snape was headed in the story line. He also talks about what it was like to work with Dan Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Ralph Fiennes.

Here’s some of what he had to say:

When you were first approached about the role, it’s been said you were reluctant to take it on until you had a conversation with JK Rowling, and she said something to you that turned it for you? Can you tell us what that was?
Alan Rickman: I don’t know that I’d ever been reluctant. It’s just that you have to take small steps towards what this thing was that you were going to be part of. Certainly, I did say I needed to talk to her before I could get a handle on how to play it, and we did have a phone conversation. She certainly didn’t tell me what the end of the story was going to be in any way at all, so I was having to buy the books along with everybody else to find out, ‘And now what?’ No, she gave me one little piece of information, which I always said I would never share with anybody and never have, and never will. It wasn’t a plot point, or crucial in any tangible way, but it was crucial to me as a piece of information that made me travel down that road rather than that one or that one or that one.

Did you speak with her over the years and over the course of making the films about Snape’s journey?
AR: No, not at all. I mean, I’ve seen her over the years on odd occasions, odd events, and she just has the most marvelous -certainly, from our point of view as actors- hands-off approach to it. She may have visited the set, but I’ve never seen her there. And I think that’s very smart of her. She’s obviously had some control over the scripts or she’s been sent final drafts and made her comments, but I’ve never been aware of any kind of controlling presence. She’s let it go.

Because the books were still being published as you were making the films and you were getting new information as each new book came out about where Snape would go, was there anything that deepened your understanding of the character or surprised you as you went along?
AR: I guess it doesn’t really work like that because you just keep thinking, ‘And now what?’ And ‘Okay, now he’s doing this.’ He receives such a solitary path from the beginning to the end and you’re aware that until it all works its way through to a conclusion, you’re never quite sure what the agendas are, so there’s as big a question mark over my head as I’m reading it and playing it as there is over everybody else’s, until it’s resolved. You know that the stakes are always very high for him, whatever the outcome proves to be.

What has it been like playing an emotionally complex, ambiguous character over these years? Has it been satisfying? Daunting? Both?
AR: Well, it’s always rewarding to play people who are complicated because that tests your acting machinery and places you right inside a great piece of storytelling because great storytelling needs ambiguous characters. It needs people where the audience and the readers don’t quite know what they’re about. So, there’s a certain ‘who-done-it’ quality or ‘who-thunk-it’ or ‘who-done-what-to-him.’ And it helps you to be very concentrated. I respond to what there is on the page and what there was on the page was news to me every time we got to a new script.

How’s it been to work with a young cast led by Dan, Rupert, Emma, who have been growing up as their characters have? Do you think that you’ve influenced their growth as actors and have they ever influenced you?
AR: You can’t help but be influenced by such kind of, well, youth and vulnerability and guts and hard work – all of which all three of them have had in spades, I think, all the way from the beginning. It’s all very well for me to talk about my seven weeks a year on each film. They’re working pretty much every day. So, when you say a 10-year commitment for them, it really has been 10 years. The number of days they’ve had off would be far less than the number of days they’ve been on. And learning on the job about what does film acting mean, and what does it mean to talk to somebody else and sound like you mean it, and listen, and know that listening is as important as talking on film. I think the whole enterprise has been phenomenally lucky to have had those three. And to watch them grow, whether one could notice it or not, it’s really with a sort of shock horror that you look now at the first film and you realize how tiny they were.

And just their curiosity about this brand new world that was opened up to them? And kind of the sponges that they became to learn it all?
AR: Yeah, but if we’re just talking about Dan, Rupert, and Emma, they never lost who they were as individuals. They’re very different from each other. That was always evident and has remained so. And as I’m sure that they would say, they lead pretty separate lives, but they have such a strong understanding of where they’ve been together that, in a way, it’s a secret that they’ll hold to themselves forever. It’s not something that I would comment on. I think it’s something very private.

You have some terrific scenes with Ralph Fiennes in this last film. Can you talk about working with Ralph?
AR: Ralph is a very good friend of mine, and, of course, somebody I respect hugely as an actor, not just on film but the way he also keeps going back to the stage and testing himself in huge and difficult roles. He never takes the easy path. It’s just great to play a scene with somebody who has that much courage in his work, and rigor, and although I know him as a good friend, you are also just working with a fellow actor, so there is no quarter given. It’s absolutely coming out of the red corner and the blue corner ready to spar, but in the best way.

And it was a good match?
AR: We enjoyed it, yeah.

What do you think of the legacy of these eight films, or the film series’ place in the history of cinema? It has had a huge impact on British cinema, British filmmaking, but in general, what do you think the legacy will be?
AR: Well, I hope ultimately its legacy is to make people cherish the notion of telling a story and not trying to do it by committee; that it is possible to trust a true storyteller’s imagination and then serve it as honorably as possible, and that you might just wind up with something that’s entertaining on the one hand, makes a load of money on the other, and gives enormous silent and not so silent pleasure to children and grownups. It’s just a validation of something that we need. It’s a human need to be told stories, and I don’t think it can be done by committee. I think it has to be one person’s imagination. So, here’s to Jo Rowling and all who may sail in her.

Read the entire article here.

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Pottermore’s Insider Blog have announced the 7 books, 7 days, 7 chances where for seven days, from July 31 through August 6, you’ll have a chance to gain early access to Pottermore.  They’re calling it the Magical Quill Challenge.

Pottermore is where JK Rowling will have the Harry Potter e-books and audiobooks. It is also where the extra content she wrote (18,000 words!) is located.

A new clue will be given each day related to a different book in the Harry Potter series. On day 1 (which is, unfortunately, already closed because they’ve receive the  maximum amount of people they can for the day) the clue is related to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s [Sorcerer's] Stone. Day 2 relates to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and so on.

Each clue’s difficulty will vary, but days 1-3 will be harder, while days 4-7 will be easier.

If you don’t gain early access, remember that Pottermore will be open to everyone beginning in October.

To find out when a clue goes live, you need to keep watch on Pottermore.com!

Good luck!

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 Happy Birthday, J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter!

Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born on July 31, 1965 in England and grew up in Chepstow Gwent before she eventually and currently lives in Scotland.  More details of her life and her current activities can be read here on her official website.  An unauthorized biographical film, Magic Beyond Words:  The J.K. Rowling Story,  about her journey on writing the first Harry Potter book has been recently broadcasted on Lifetime TV.  It can now be viewed on the network’s website until August 11. Click here to view it.

As for Harry Potter, he was “conceived” on Ms. Rowling’s delayed train journey from Manchester to London in the late 1980′s.  For the next five years after that inspiration, Ms. Rowling wrote notes and outlines about Harry’s life and his world for all seven books in her series about the boy wizard.  Twelve publishers actually rejected him before Bloomsbury in the UK and eventually Scholastic Books in the US were interested in publishing the story of Harry Potter approximately ten years after he was “conceived”.

With the opening of  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, FL and the release of the two final Harry Potter films Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2, Ms. Rowling has had quite a year; and now, we hope she has another brilliant year with the new site Pottermore and stories to tell, but most of all, a happy year for her and her family.

And Harry, we hope you live forever!

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 continues to do well at the box office and is predicted to easily hit the $1 billion mark globally by the end of this weekend.  It is the first in the film’s series to hit this mark.

Domestically (in the US) is has made $296 million and overseas it’s brought in $630 million.

As it surpasses $1 billion this weekend it will also beat Sorcerer’s Stone‘s domestic gross of $317 million and Deathly Hallows Part 1‘s $659 million internationally amount.

I think I need to go see it again – for the 6th time!

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Tom Felton, who portrays Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, is also starring in The Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  The premiere recently took place in Los Angeles.  Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) was also in town and stopped by and had a very sweet way of showing support for his fellow Potter star by wearing a t-shirt that he wrote I HEART Tom Felton on it.

Tom really got a kick out of this and even added some of his own art work to it, which Tom tweeted a photo of.

There’s also a video from the premiere that includes an interview with Tom.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes will be in theatres on August 5th.

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 We previously reported that an unauthorized biography film was being made on the life of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.  And now tonight,  Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story premiered at 9:00 pm EST on Lifetime TV.  It will air again tonight at 11:00pm EST and tomorrow (July 24) at 7:00pm EST.

Here is a summary of the film posted on Lifetime’s website:

“Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story” dramatizes the British author’s struggle to bring the beloved wizard fantasy of Harry Potter to life. Starting out as a single mother on welfare, she becomes one of the world’s wealthiest women, with more than 400 million copies of her visionary books sold across the globe, resulting in a billion-dollar film franchise. The film is an inspiring look at a woman’s rise to become one of the most influential writers ever — from her humble beginnings as an imaginative young girl and awkward teenager to the devastating loss of her mother and the genesis of the Harry Potter phenomenon in her early twenties. The rags-to-riches tale also follows Rowling’s tumultuous first marriage, becoming a mother, her divorce and the dark days of living on government assistance while publisher after publisher passed on her first novel … before it became an international best-seller and established Rowling’s rightful place in literary and cultural history.

Coincidentally, the child actress who portrayed Rowling as a little girl has the last name Watson like the actress Emma Watson who portrayed “Hermione Granger” in the film adaptations of the Harry Potter books.  Click here to see her photo in the midst of other photos from the film.

UPDATE:  The film is now available for viewing on the Lifetime website until August 11, 2011.  Click here to watch it.

The site also posted one-minute bonus videos from the film:

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Dan Radliffe’s (Harry Potter) next film to hit theatres, The Woman in Black, has a new release date of February 3, 2012.  It was originally supposed to be in theatres in January.

Dan has the role of Victorian era detective Arthur Kipps in this thriller, which is based off of Susan Hill’s novel.

There’s also a new trailer online for the film (thanks to TDS).

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 If you missed any of the Harry Potter photos, interviews, articles, and apps The Los Angeles Times had posted on their ‘Hero Complex’ webpage in anticipation of the theater release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 which occurred on July 15, all of them now are compiled in the current ‘Hero Complex’ feature on the newspaper’s website.  This includes a photo gallery of each of the three stars (Dan Radcliffe as “Harry”, Emma Watson as “Hermione”, and Rupert Grint as “Ron”) in the past ten years as they made all eight films; brief video interviews with the director David Yates, interview articles with other Harry Potter stars like Tom Felton (Draco), Matthew Lewis (Neville), and Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy) as well as the trio themselves.  There is even an article on Pottermore along with the special apps features “Find Your Personal Patronus” and “Parseltongue Translator Lets Muggles Hiss Like Slytherins”.

I enjoyed two of the video interviews with David Yates.  In one of them, he spoke highly of Alan Rickman as “Snape” and told a funny tidbit of how the actor couldn’t find his”mojo” when Yates blocked him on a slope in Half-Blood Prince.  In the other video, Yates described his first day on the Harry Potter set which was when Mike Newell was still directing Goblet of Fire.

Click here to review the complete article.

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