Here’s the first look at Harry Potter from “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, the sixth book in the Harry Potter series.

As Harry Potter begins his 6th year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he discovers an old book marked mysteriously “This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince” and begins to learn more about Lord Voldemort’s dark past.

Warner Bros. has announced the cast for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The studio bringing aboard a handful of new, key characters, including the young Voldemort, Lavender Brown and Professor Slughorn.

via E! News:

Essaying Voldemort as a mischievous teenager will be 16-year-old Frank Dillane. Helen McCrory (The Queen, Becoming Jane) has signed on to play Narcissa Black Malfoy, the mother of Harry’s nemesis, Draco Malfoy.

And much to the chagrin of thousands of aspiring actresses who turned out to audition, the role of Ron’s love interest, Lavender Brown, went to 20-year-old actress Jessie Cave.

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Warner Bros has announced that Helena Bonham Carter has signed on to return as Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth film adaptation. Carter is the first name outside of the main three that has been confirmed for the film. The sixth film is by far the least interesting of the series, so I’m not expecting much. Filming is scheduled to begin in two months as Half-Blood Prince is scheduled to hit theaters on November 21, 2008. /film

After show his magic in the cinema worldwide, Harry Potter continues the phenomena with his latest adventures book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

• Pre-orders of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” on the Amazon.com website are coming in at the rate of one every five seconds, and more than 1.8 million have been ordered so far.
• Amazon is reporting Banff, Alta. is definitely the town with the most Potter fans.
• Spellbound residents from Banff ordered more copies than any other town in Canada.
• Indigo held several parties across the country to mark the book’s release.
• A section of downtown Toronto closed down and transformed into Diagon Alley to accommodate hundreds of made-up witches and sorcerers who lined up for hours to get their hands on the book the minute it was released.
• Sixteen countries printed the book on eco-friendly paper, according to a release by Markets Initiative, a Vancouver-based environmental group that has worked with Rowling.
• The ‘green’ publishing of “The Deathly Hallows” has saved enough trees to amount to 2.5 times the size of New York’s Central Park and has reduced enough carbon emissions to equal 1,577 cars off the road.
• If Friday was mayhem for bookstores, Saturday was madness for Canada Post as thousands of staff working overtime in cities across Canada to deliver 80,000 copies on time.
• “Normally there would be about 10, today we have 42 trucks in service,” Canada Post’s Kathy Neal told CTV News.
• To date, more than 325 million Potter books have been sold worldwide. It’s expected the seventh book will sell at least 55 million copies, once translations into French, German, Hebrew, Dutch, Spanish and other languages, become available in late 2007 or early 2008.
• The hype machine churned even faster when the fifth movie based on Rowling’s series opened in movie theatres Wednesday. “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” shattered records when it took in US$140 million in the U.S. from July 11 through Sunday, July 15.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters:

1. “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” $77.4 million.

2. “Transformers,” $36 million.

3. “Ratatouille,” $18 million.

4. “Live Free or Die Hard,” $10.9 million.

5. “License to Wed,” $7.4 million.

6. “1408,” $5.01 million.

7. “Evan Almighty,” $5 million.

8. “Knocked Up,” $3.7 million.

9. “Sicko,” $2.65 million.

10. “Ocean’s Thirteen,” $1.9 million.

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