The new Wizard of the Month over at JKRowling.com is one we have all grown up with throughout his years of battling evil in the Wizarding World. Harry Potter is now featured at Jo's site as the Wizard of the Month for October and if you STILL haven't read the final book, do not proceed as it reveals Harry's fate.

Previously we told you that JK Rowling had agreed donate and auction a signed set of her beloved series for Books Abroad, a charity that seeks to "help to educate children worldwide by sending free school books that are carefully chosen to match the need of each school." Earlier today at midnight the auction on eBay had closed with the winning bid at £18,200, or $37,100 with the starting offer at £100. To prevent the books from being stolen, they were locked in a jail prior to the auction. Books Abroad said they currently "don't have any specific use (for the money) in mind."

The fifth Harry Potter movie that was released earlier this year dominated the National Movie Awards, winning three of the six prizes. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix won the award for best family movie. Emma Watson picked up best female performance for her role as "Hermione," while Daniel Radcliffe who plays the lead won for best male performance, beating Daniel Craig from the Bond movie, Johnny Depp, and co-star Rupert Grint. Rupert has this to say about losing to Dan: "Obviously I didn't expect to win, because I think Dan deserves it more than me." The winners were picked solely on public votes. The show will be broadcast on ITV1 on Saturday at 21.30 GMT.

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson tonight attended the National Movie Awards in London. Check out some pics of their appearance here.

A trailer for the upcoming release of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVD has appeared online. Click here to watch it. The DVD will be released on December 11th in the US and November 12th in the UK.

Two new audio interviews with Harry Potter movie producer David Heyman and set designer Stuart Craig have emerged online. The first interview, with Heyman, can be listened to here; the producer discusses, among many things, why David Yates was given the director's helm for Movies 5 and 6.

The second interview, with Craig, can be heard here; he discusses the challenges he encountered while working on Order of the Phoenix and briefly mentions the sixth film.

Emma Watson's official website has been updated with the following news:

"Many of you may not know that Emma has little identical twin sisters, and a little brother (Toby) aged four; these are the children of her father, who has remarried since he and Emma's mother divorced in 1995. When Emma was filming Ballet Shoes the director was looking for a little girl to play the part of the young Pauline when she is first introduced into the film aged two; we can now exclusively reveal that Emma's twin sisters Nina and Lucy (who were three just last Monday!) were cast and have acted in this role and will therefore appear in the BBC production of Ballet Shoes which will air in the UK at Christmas time!"

This week on our Harry Potter podcast, Jamie, Laura, and Micah take the reigns and host a great discussion on Sorcerer's Stone VS Deathly Hallows parallels! Plus:

- Order of the Phoenix DVD release date, but somebody hasn't seen it in theaters.
- Our thoughts on Jim Broadbent being cast as Horace Slughorn.
- Listener Rebuttal: Why did Fred have to die?
- Opening chapters, the Mirror of Erised, King's Cross and Gringotts.
- The Men With Two Faces: Quirrell and Snape.
- Dumbledore's Ambiguity.
- Anchor's to life: Sorcerer's Stone, Horcruxes and Hallows.
- Dueling Club featuring Harry, the Terminator and Optimus Prime.
- Make the Connection is taken to a whole new level.
- Australians: Listen to the end of the show for a special announcement from Eric!

All that and much more is available on these five shows! To download, update your iTunes feed and download the episode. You can also get 'em over at the MuggleCast website (and if you're on dial-up, we have versions just for you). Enjoy!

The MTV News Blog has online a nice little interview with Harry Potter actor Dan Radcliffe, who gives MTV the scoop on filming the Cave and Inferi scenes:

“I’m really looking forward to filming the cave and all the stuff in there with the lake and the Inferi,” Radcliffe enthused. “Me and [Michael] Gambon in a row boat for a few days. It’s gonna be amazing.” (Warning: spoilers ahead for those who haven’t read the book.)

Dan also reveals that the cave will be filmed on a real set rather than being inserted digitally. Half-Blood Prince will be released on November 21st, 2008. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed with the tip!

In a new audio interview that will leave us die-hard fans very happy, Half-Blood Prince director David Yates talks about how he understands the fan's connection with each film. With that in mind, he says, he's going to make HBP a very character-driven film with a coming of age story (thanks in part to screenwriter Steve Kloves' "fun" draft).

To listen to this 6 1/2 minute interview, head on over to Voices From Krypton who got the scoop. Thanks to those who e-mailed with the tip!

An article from the Scotsman reports that the actress who plays Cho Chang in the Potter films has been nominated for the 2007 Most Stylish Scotswoman award:

But if she wants to follow in the footsteps of model Lauren Tempany and jazz singer Nikki King (the 2005 and 2006 winners), Leung will have to outshine a list of formidable competitors. They include Ugly Betty star Ashley Jensen and actress Laura Fraser as well as Hannah McGill, director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and artist Gay Grossart.

The awards ceremony, taking place on October 26th, will be held in Glasgow. We'll be sure to let you know how Katie did. For the full article, click here. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed!

Following the German art cover that was released earlier this month, French publishers Gallimard has revealed the book art for Deathly Hallows by artist Jean-Claude Götting. You can view this cover here. The book will be released in France on October 26th.

The other day, we posted the first part of our 12-hour LIVE podcast event! Now available are the other five parts, each available as a separate download on the MuggleCast iTunes feed as well our website. Some highlights from the remaining 10 hours of show include:

- Dumbledore visits with Ben at the Notre Dame VS Michigan game.
- Alex of The Remus Lupins joins the show for a few hours along with fellow band members Tyler and Brandon.
- A live interview with (someone claiming to be) Laura Mallory.
- We take several live calls throughout the entire show.
- A live interview with Kenneth Marut, the creator of the MuggleCast theme song.
- We discuss the scenes we're looking forward to seeing on the silver screen.
- Alfonso Cuaron to direct DH?
- Have the moviemakers dug themselves into a hole?

All that and much much much much MUCH more is available on these five shows! To download, update your iTunes feed and download each individual episode. You can also download them over at the MuggleCast website (and if you're on dial-up, we have versions just for you).

JK Rowling's official website has been updated to wish everyone's favorite witch Hermione Granger a Happy Birthday!

Emma Watson has updated the blog on her official site informing fans that she finished filming Ballet Shoes on Saturday. She says, "We were working six day weeks so everyone got really close. For this reason it was very emotional saying goodbye. I am really nervous to see the results but mostly very very excited."

After various sites confirmed the Limited Edition Gift Set and 2-disc Special Edition, Warner Brothers has announced details for all four DVD sets being released on December 11th.

Details of note:
- Single disc (both fullscreen and widescreen) priced at $28.98, Dual-Disc at $34.99, HD and Blu-ray at $35.99.
- Dual-disc set to include "sneak" peek at Half-Blood Prince.
- Additional 17 minutes of OOTP footage included on all DVDs.
- Limited Edition Gift Set to include "more than three hours of all-new content from the past Harry Potter films."

For all information from Warner Brothers, click the link below.

UPDATE: To hold all of this information, we now have a page in our OOTP Movie section of MuggleNet.

In an interview with our friends at Dark Horizons, actor Jim Broadbent has confirmed that he will be playing the role of Slughorn in Half-Blood Prince:

Broadbent: Yeah I had basically three months in Lincolnshire in the summer and suddenly now I'm back on the rollercoaster again and I've got to finish off Indiana Jones next month and I've got a bit on Young Victoria and it's all been sort of stacking up and then I'm doing Harry Potter.

Question: Who are you?

Broadbent: Who am I? He's called Horace Slughorn. He's a retired teacher of magic who's drawn back out of retirement because he's got some secrets they need in the battle against the Deatheaters and he's quite star struck as a teacher and he's drawn back into the fold because he likes to notch up celebrity students, and he's drawn back by Harry.

Check out the full interview for details on his costume fittings and what kind of character he's been scripted to portray. Thanks to Alex for the tip!

As Dan Radcliffe revealed in this interview with MTV, filming for Half-Blood Prince begins today! Stay with MuggleNet in the coming months as we bring you the latest set reports and other filming news.

Half-Blood Prince will be in theaters November 21st, 2008.

Canadian visitor Lori sent us this article from GlobeandMail.com, which reveals Jo's plans to hold a book reading in Canada:

Ms. Rowling, who lives in England, will make an appearance the morning of Oct. 23 at the Wintergarden Theatre in downtown Toronto. It's an all-ages event hosted by Toronto's International Festival of Authors and Rowling's Canadian publisher, Vancouver-based Raincoast Books. Ms. Rowling will read from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, entertain questions from fans and autograph complimentary copies of “Deathly Hallows.”

Starting today through September 27th, Canadian fans can visit Raincoast's website and enter for the drawing that awards 10 pairs of tickets daily. Tickets are also being given out through Canadian libraries and the country's 79 public and Catholic school boards.

Good luck to all who enter!

It has been confirmed by Warther Bros. that the fifth Harry Potter movie DVD will be released in Britain on November 12th. No confirmation at present on the United States release date, but we'll keep you posted.

Live from the internet, part one of our huge 12-hour Harry Potter podcast is now available! Today, we have for you the first two hours where we discuss the latest Potter news, take lots of calls, and much more. Including:

- Andrew, Jamie, and Laura entertain you for the first two hours.
- Harry Potter is the top grossing franchise of all time - what do we think?
- Dan on Broadway?
- Andrew and Laura offer themselves out for lunch dates in exchange for tickets to Jo's reading.
- ...and proceed to argue over who deserves to go more.
- The hosts discuss school and how the show has had an effect.
- Jamie discusses why he thinks HP classes won't become universal.

To download, we recommend subscribing (for free) via iTunes. That way, your computer will automatically get each new episode as it is released. You can also view full shownotes and find alternate links at the MuggleCast website. The remaining five parts will be released soon. Special thanks to Ustream.tv for hosting us as we broadcasted live. Enjoy!

Thanks to DVDTown.com, you can now take a look at the front cover and the back cover of the new Order of the Phoenix widescreen DVD as well as the front and back cover of the special edition. As previously reported, the movie is said to come out on DVD on December 11th of this year.

In a new interview with MTV, Daniel Radcliffe discusses Horace Slughorn's portrayal in the upcoming movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Dan comments that Slughorn's character will be mostly funny throughout the movie but in serious scenes "the tragedy [of Slughorn] outweigh the comedy." It is still unknown as to who will play the role of this Slytherin, but once it is announced we will keep you posted!

Warner Brothers has announced this evening that the Harry Potter series is the largest-grossing film franchise to date globally, surpassing Star Wars and and James Bond. Totaling $4.47 billion in ticket sales (with two films left to go, WB points out), several high-ups at Warner Brothers are quoted in the press release:

In making the announcement, Alan Horn [President & Chief Operating Officer] said, “It would be an understatement to say we are proud of the success of the Harry Potter films. We also want to congratulate all of the extraordinary actors, filmmakers and artists who have shared this remarkable cinematic journey with us.”

Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. Pictures President of Domestic Distribution, said, “It is a thrill to see the Harry Potter franchise reach this unparalleled mark, and, with two movies yet to come, it is amazing to think what heights the franchise could reach by the end of the decade.

Veronika Kwan-Rubinek, Warner Bros. Pictures President of International Distribution, added, “This worldwide box office record once again proves that the appeal of the Harry Potter movies knows no border, no age limit, and no language barrier. Each of the five films has captured the hearts and sparked the imagination of audiences everywhere.”

Of note, Variety has published an article comparing the Potter film franchise to the other big ones:

Bond, which dates back to 1962, has generated $4.44 billion worldwide and the "Star Wars" pics have pulled down $4.23 billion since the first release in 1977. None of the tallies account for inflation or rising ticket prices.

And domestically the "Star Wars" franchise still far outpaces the boy wizard. All told, the "Star Wars" pics have grossed $2.18 billion, while the "Harry Potter" franchise has grossed $1.41 billion. But then there are still two more "Potters" to go.

And all three have generated millions upon millions in downstream ancillary coin for their studios, once homevideo and TV revenue are added into the tallies.

To read the press release from Warner Brothers, click the link below.

Fifteen high schools, 15 middle schools, and 10 elementary schools in the Los Angeles area have been randomly selected to participate in JK Rowling's Open Book Tour stop in LA on October 15th. A student from each of the 40 schools will be selected (based on an essay contest) to attend the event. Once there, each student will receive a signed book from Jo.

For the full list of schools, see the link above. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed with the tip!

On top of news about the upcoming Order of the Phoenix DVD, DVD Times also has our first look at the "Harry Potter Limited Edition Giftset." The completely collection of Potter movies on DVD will be released on December 11th - the same day as the OOTP DVD.


By looking at this picture released by DVD Times, it looks like there will be several bonus items included in the set:

- "Harry Potter Bonus DVD"
- "Harry Potter Interactive DVD Game - Hogwarts Challenge"
- "Bookmark Collection"
- Trading Cards

We'll update with more information as we receive it. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed with the tip!

Earlier today, several Harry Potter fansites were invited to participate in a conference call with Dan Radcliffe for his new movie, December Boys. Emerson was one of those who chatted with Dan, and we'd like to point everyone to our friends at HPANA for audio from this call. Transcripts and additional information will be available soon!

DVDActive.com and ComingSoon.net, both reliable movie sources, are now reporting that the fifth film will be released on DVD December 11th. From DVDActive:

Extras on the two-disc release will include 10 minutes of additional scenes, a A&E documentary, a Trailing Tonks feature with Actress Nat Tena, various making of featurettes, and a Fun and Games feature in which director David Yates and editor Mark Day show us what a difference a good edit makes and allows you to edit a scene.

It looks like some fun new features that have not been on Potter DVDs before will appear with OOTP! In addition, the film is slated for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD release. We'll update with more when we hear it! Thanks to everyone who e-mailed with the tip.

Movies.com is holding their second annual Readers' Poll, and several Harry Potter-related websites, actors, and actresses are in the running! The categories and nominees that we'd like to see win are below:

- Hottest Up and Coming Male: Dan Radcliffe
- Hottest Up and Coming Female: Emma Watson
- Can't Wait For: Harry Potter 6
- Official Actress Website: EmmaWatson.com (inaccurately listed)
- Official Movie Site: HarryPotter.com
- Unofficial Movie Site: MuggleNet.com

Click here to get voting, and you'll see all of these categories within a few pages. Currently, MuggleNet is trailing in second place behind a Super Hero website. This is blasphemy! Thank you for everyone's support, and we'll update you on October 2nd when winners are announced.

The fifth Harry Potter movie has received numerous nominations for this year's Scream awards, honoring the newest and hottest in horror, sci-fi, fantasy and comic genres. Order of the Phoenix is nominated under the following categories: the ultimate scream, best fantasy movie, fantasy hero (Daniel Radcliffe), most vile villain (Ralph Fiennes), best sequel, and best f/x.

Beginning tomorrow, you can vote online until October 19th. The awards will be aired on Spike TV on October 23rd.

In other "Phoenix" news, the movie has become the highest grossing IMAX 3D live-action film release ever.

Scholastic has revealed the lucky 40 schools in New York City that will be participating in JK Rowling's Open Book Tour on October 19th. Each school will select 40 students, totaling 1600 children from third through twelfth grade. From the press release:

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Scholastic Chairman, President and CEO Richard Robinson handed out 40 Sorting Hats to representatives from participating schools (listed below) to help each select 40 lucky third through twelfth graders who will attend the event at Carnegie Hall on October 19th.In addition, Scholastic announced that they will be donating 5,000 copies of Sorcerer's Stone to New York City public schools so students can "begin their Hogwarts journey."

For the full press release, including a list of NYC schools that were chosen and the school selection process, follow the link below!

Carlsen, the German publisher for the Harry Potter novels has released the cover art for the adult edition of the seventh book. You can view this cover here. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released in Germany in October.

Joshua Lodge, a former friend of Rupert Grint, has denied allegations of sexual assaulting an underage girl at Rupert's 18th birthday party last year.

In response to the charges against Joshua, Rupert issued the following statement: "I am totally appalled and disgusted by the actions of Joshua Lodge. I am 100% behind the victim."

Lodge, 19, was cautioned by the police for the offense. This means his name will remain on the sexual offenders list for the next two years.

Earlier today, Daniel Radcliffe made an appearance on NBC's TODAY show. In this interview, Dan discusses his new movie December Boys and that filming for Half-Blood Prince will begin in "two weeks time." He also says that Equus coming to Broadway is a definite possibility and if it does come to the US next spring, he will reprise his role. You can watch this interview here.

Helena Bonham Carter, the actress who portrays Bellatrix Lestrange in the Potter films will be back for the upcoming movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince according to an article today from The Independent. Although filming for the next movie begins in just two months' time, in a statement issued yesterday Helena's publicist said she was not due back on set to film her scenes until Spring 2008.

The actress is currently pregnant with her second child, which could explain the delay in filming her part.

After releasing a series of live shows this summer, it's now time to celebrate. We're back in the studio this week for a very fun-filled (and lengthy) episode. And with more listeners than ever right now, we look forward to continuing MuggleCast with lots of post-Deathly Hallows talk. Live now:

- MuggleNet staff member Jerry Cooke joins the panel.
- Andrew auditions for the Harry Potter musical.
- Micah and Jerry give their thoughts on Deathly Hallows.
- We take several e-mails from listeners who ask about the book.
- We discuss those characters who died.
- What did we think of the role Horcruxes played in the book?
- Was Scrimgeour's last act really intended to protect Harry?
- Dueling Club, Listener Challenge, and even Chicken Soup returns.

All that and MUCH more can be found on this week's episode! To download, we recommend subcribing (for free) through iTunes. That way, each episode will automatically download to your computer as soon as it is released. Just click here and then press "Subscribe" within iTunes. The show can also be download directly through the MuggleCast website. Enjoy!