Watch out, the second Harry Potter movie is on the way in a blaze ofpublicity. In the UK, cinemas have already taken £3 million in advancebookings, writes Michael Dwyer, Film Correspondent.
The first Irish advertisements for cinema's second J.K. Rowling adaptation, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, appeared this week, announcing a weekend of paid previews at cinemas all over the country on the weekend beginning November 8th, before the movie's official release in the US, UK and Ireland on November 15th.
"The reaction has been unbelievable," says Terry Molloy, Irish general manager of Warner Bros, the Hollywood studio which owns the international rights to Rowling's phenomenally successful Potter books. "People just can't wait to see the film. In the UK where advance booking opened a few weeks ago, they've already taken over £3 million in bookings."
When Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released here on the same mid-November weekend last year, it achieved the best opening week box-office figures of any movie released in Ireland. It went on take more than €6 million at the Irish box-office, making it the third highest grossing film of all-time here, after Titanic and the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring. The international release of the first Potter film has made over $900 million.
Molloy, who is one of the few people who has seen the new movie, says it is better and more entertaining than its predecessor. But he fears that it is facing into a much more competitive arena. Last year, he points out, the first Harry Potter film and the first Lord of the Rings picture, which opened five weeks later, carved up the lucrative Christmas market between them.
This year the competition is more intense, he believes. On November 20th, the heavily hyped new James Bond movie will be released - Die Another Day, with Pierce Brosnan back as Bond. Nine days later comes the Disney comedy sequel, The Santa Clause 2, starring Tim Allen.
On December 18th, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, will be released, followed on St Stephen's Day by Sweet Home Alabama, a romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon, which has taken over $100 million in the US to date.
"We have had a lot of inquiries since booking for Harry Potter opened a few days ago, and we expect the interest to grow in the weeks ahead," says Andy O'Gorman of the Ormonde multiplex in Stillorgan, Co Dublin. "The first film was a big hit for us, and the anticipation is much greater for the second one. I think it helps a lot that people liked the first film so much, so the expectations are very high on this one."
Early ticket sales have been brisk at the three UCI multiplexes in Dublin, according to Eoin O'Connor, marketing executive of UCI Ireland. "The advance screenings are selling very well, but there are still plenty of tickets for all shows at this stage because the film will be so heavily screened," he says. "We're really looking forward to opening the film . . . We're expecting it to do really well." Terry Molloy is confident The Chamber of Secrets will hold its own against all the competition at Christmas.
This time Harry and his friends - played once again by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint - are in their second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, when they uncover a dark force terrorising the school. Returning from the original film are Richard Harris as Dumbledore, Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall, Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape and Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid. Newcomers to the series this time include Kenneth Branagh as Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, and Miriam Margolyes as Professor Sprout.
Aficionados of the Potter movies will have to wait until the summer of 2004 to see the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which starts shooting in the spring under the Mexican director, Alfonso Cuaron, who takes over from Chris Columbus, the director of the first two Potter films.
Meanwhile, rumours that J.K. Rowling is writing an eighth book in the series were scotched this week. "The plan is to have only seven books in the series," her UK book agent, Neil Blair of Christopher Little, said on Monday. "There is no truth in the rumours".