|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fans snap up Potter II tickets
LONDON, England -- Excited Harry Potter fans, eager for another dose of cinematic magic from their wizard hero, have begun snapping up seats for the sequel -- nearly two months before the film opens. Tickets for the long-awaited "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" went on sale across Britain on Friday. The film hits cinema screens in Britain and the United States on November 15. Advance ticket sales for the sequel, which again stars Daniel Radcliffe in the title role, are expected to surpass those of the record-breaking first Harry Potter film. Odeon, Britain's largest cinema chain, was deluged with phone calls Friday from fans clamoring for tickets to the sequel. "We have had to triple staff at our call centres," an Odeon spokeswoman told Reuters. "We're expecting sales to be even higher than they were for the first film because the second book is even more popular." The latest film follows Harry and his two friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, through their second year as pupils at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Trailers have already revealed scenes of Harry and fellow Hogwarts pupil Draco Malfoy duelling in the Great Hall and of Harry, Ron and Hermione drinking Polyjuice Potion. The all-star cast includes Richard Harris, Dame Maggie Smith, Kenneth Branagh, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman and John Cleese. Last year's hit, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (entitled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the U.S.), took almost $1 billion (£640 million) around the world at the box office. A spokeswoman for distributors Warner Bros said: "The film last year had the highest advance box office sales. It broke all box office records but this is darker and funnier." Warner Bros. is owned by AOL Time Warner, parent company of CNN and CNN.com So far, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has written four of the planned series of seven books. The "Chamber of Secrets" novel was followed by "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Earlier this month, Rowling, who is expecting her second child, revealed that the fifth novel, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," is almost complete.
She told The Wall Street Journal: "When will I hand it in? I don't want to say, but it won't be very long." Rowling, 37, famously wrote the first novel as she sat in cafes in Edinburgh, Scotland, while temporarily unemployed. "The idea came to me on a train going from Manchester to London," she told CNN's Larry King. "I had this very physical response to this idea. I just thought it would be so much fun to write. "I didn't think it would do this well with anyone. I thought I was writing quite an obscure book that, if it ever got published, would maybe have a handful of devotees. I never expected it to have broad appeal."
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
