The first teaser poster for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has arrived in our e-owl's inbox. And I bet you didn't expect it to be like this.

Gleefully showing Hogwarts burning to bits, the Deathly Hallows poster is nothing like the promotional materials used before by Warner Bros. They involved things like Harry's face, or a picture of all the main characters looking serious, or a picture of all the main characters looking seriously at Harry's face. This is striking, dynamic, surprising and, well, awesome.

"It all ends here" screams the image, burning with its urgent message that HP7 (the new trend for the Rowling's mouthful of a title) is coming out in two parts and will be in 3-D. The epic trailer got everyone worked up last week, but this? This is even more exciting. So much so you can forgive them for that ridiculous tagline.

Directed by David Yates once again, the conclusion of the story of The Boy Who Lived is set to be darker and more spectacular than any of the previous Harry Potter movies. Yes, even that really brilliant first one.

It's only 135 days until Deathly Hallows hits UK cinemas. But you were probably already counting anyway...  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phil Lord and Chris Miller have signed up to make a Lego Movie for Warner Bros. The pair, who brought us Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, have impressed both the studio and Lego's chief executives by coming up with a vision that incorporates both live action and animated Lego.

Lord and Miller will not only be directing the Lego Movie, but also writing it as well. Which pretty much gives them license to play with Lego for at least a solid year. No word is out on the plot details yet, but events will take place in the "Lego World" - presumably Windsor.

Judging by the various Lego videogames that have turned up, which Warners were also behind, the Lego Movie should have a good line in jokes and a sound knowledge of physics. And, if Lord and Miller keep to their unique sense of humour, a handful of sentient giant roast chickens.

They're working with Jonah Hill on updating TV show 21 Jump Street at present, but it's a safe bet they're already lining up their favourite knobbly bits.

"The Finale Of The Worldwide Phenomenon!"

"The Motion Picture Event Of A Generation!" 

Subtlety isn't the word here. Oh no. Because after all that excitement at the MTV Movie Awards, the wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is finally over. Not the wait for the film, mind you - even when Part One's out in November, you'll still have to wait until July next year for Part Two. For now, the wait is over for the trailer, because finally, the much-coveted video went live online today. At 3am.

Directed by David Yates, the dark final chapter to the epic fantasy franchise reaches its mature conclusion with a solid slice of gloom and a few touches of doom. With ickle Danny Radcliffe and Rupert Grint looking more like almost-grown-men than ever before, they join the slightly-taller Emma Watson as J.K. Rowling's wizarding trio come of age.

Horcruxes, Hallows, Tents and Dragons - Deathly Hallows has it all. And in two parts. Will it actually live up to the honestly rather insane amount of hype that precedes it? From the looks of the (admittedly spectacular) trailer, most likely yes. But check out the trailer yourself below, and give us your thoughts.

And, while you're at it, check out the pretty stills below the super-glossy video as well. Just in case you're not drooling enough yet.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a space in want of a Guillermo del Toro is nigh impossible to fill. Still, MGM are casting around for a director big enough to pick up with del Toro left off in Middle Earth and helm The Hobbit (complete with all two years of Guillermo's pre-visualisation work). Is that man Potter director David Yates? The word on the web says yes.

The Wrap have done some digging around with Yates' agents and have confirmed that all these rumours are false. Which naturally means they might well be true. Sure, there's nothing been mentioned by Peter Jackson or old William of Bull himself, and New Line are all quiet on the Hobbit front, but it's a pretty plausible replacement for the still-to-be-greenlit project.

Yates has proven himself strong in the face of fantasy and CGI visuals with Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince and presumably will do the same with Deathly Hallows Parts One and Two - although he'll be tied up with post-production on those for a while yet to come, let alone promotional duties. Still, maybe he's got time: The Hobbit is a long way off (despite Ian McKellen's tweets about it shooting in December), or at least seems that way until there's a green light, a director attached, and some serious money thrown MGM's way.

They could do a lot worse than David Yates as director. After the effort del Toro put into The Hobbit, there wouldn't be too much left to get the project ready for production, and I rather liked Yates' Potter work - particularly Order of the Phoenix. And let's not forget, either, that he also directed the excellent BBC TV drama State of Play...

We all know Titans Will Clash. But now Potter Will Clash too. In 3-D. Thanks to Titan's positive testing, the final two instalments of Rowling's wizard franchise will be bumped into third dimension as well - something fast becoming standard practise for big summer blockbusters.

Warners Bros haven't officially confirmed this, but rumours have been rife (over at MarketSaw) of their tentpole releases being converted to cash cows (at a cost of $5 million apiece). Knocking Titan's release date back by two weeks is a direct casualty, but Potter has time to recover from the blow: he'll continue to uncover the Deathly Hallows in November this year and July of next. Now he just needs some snazzy glasses - Luna's already got some.

 

 

 

It's less than a year until the next Harry Potter film, but they've already released the first image from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the first part of which comes out in November next year.

Directed by the excellent David Yates once more, the two-parter sees Harry, Ron and Hermione shrug off their school uniforms for a stint in the real world. There's a load of CGI, I'm sure, but there's also a lot of mud, dirt and camping. So it's no surprise that the first photo, from USA Today, showcases them in their normal muggle clothes: "Me and Dan actually have some stubble!" Rupert Grint told USA Today. 

Yates added: "It's going to feel very real. We're going for a vérité approach. Being away from Hogwarts, they're like these three refugees on the run. They're out in the big bad world, facing real danger, unguarded by those wonderful benign wizards at Hogwarts. They don't have a home to go to."

Is it wrong to already get a little excited about this?