Last night at midnight marked the end of a very magical era. The final installment in the Harry Potter films, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II" premiered across the U.S. and raked in a record-breaking $43.5 million from just the midnight showings.
As you might have learned from some of our past blogs, there are a TON of Harry Potter fans on The Last Word staff. Our Senior Producer Nikki Egan came up with the title of the blog post, producers Nick Ramsey and Sarah Muller went to the movie before work this morning and I have not let go of my wand (modeled after that of Miss Hermione Granger's) all day. Our staff has a conspiracy theory that the real reason President Obama and congressional leaders aren't meeting today is because they are taking their kids to the movie; when the president told leaders to "brainstorm" today, he really meant watch Harry Potter and hope for a magical solution to the impending debt ceiling crisis. But I digress...
For Harry Potter fans, such as I, who grew up rushing to get the newest book at midnight or who listened to the audio books to help them when they were homesick at college (true story), today is truly a sad day. Except for maybe Warner Bros. executives who are expecting the film to break opening weekend record set by "The Dark Knight."
While J.K. Rowling will most likely be done with writing new Potter stories, she plans to launch a new website called "Pottermore" come the fall. Hopefully, she will being adding original content to the site, billed as as "website that builds an exciting online experience around the reading of the Harry Potter books." Either way, one can only hope that Rowling lives up to last week's tease when she said she should just write another book.
Please J.K, please, please, please don't let this be The Last Word.