HollywoodIdiocy.com

Worse than his showdown with the Half-Blood Prince or the Deathly Hallows, the biggest challenge facing Harry Potter is the publication this weekend of the final book in the seven-book series by J.K. Rowling. For the first five Harry Potter films adapted from the series, fans have had the mystery of not knowing how all their favorite characters will end up, in the end.

That ends this weekend. With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, all guessing games come to an end. It will be there in print for everyone to read. Will Harry, Ron and Hermoinie live? Or die? Is Snape ultimately good, or is he in league with Valdemort?

All the answers - or at least, all the answers Potter fans are ever going to get - will be known just as soon as the fastest reader can skim through the book this weekend. Unless, of course, they are lazy journalists who’ll flip to the last chapter or so and write up a news story that spoils the fun for everyone.

While millions of readers may be locking themselves away from TV, radio and Internet from the moment they pick up the book until they finish reading the last page, Potter’s movie-goer fans are in for a much longer wait; isolation for the next 2-3 years is simply not a realistic option.

Imagine the horrors Warner Brothers is facing. Almost 2-3 years before they release the book version of Deathly Hallows on the world, wrapping up the acting stints of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint on the series, fans worldwide will know how the last film is to end.

Because of the finality of the seventh book, keeping a clamp on spoilers is a bigger concern than ever before. If, for example, Harry … or one of the other “big three” characters … does die, consider the impact such foreknowledge might have on the box office receipts of the last two films.

There will always be a core of Potter fans who will faithfully attend the final two movies; but what about the rest? Can the more casual fans keep up their enthusiasm if it becomes confirmed that Harry or someone else dies in the end?

It doesn’t take financial reporting software to figure out that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix might be the last “huge box office” outing for Harry, Hermoinie and Ron. If one of those big three die in the last book, the more casual Potter fans may skip Half-Blood Prince altogether, though they may return for the movie adaptation of the death of a major character (or two… or “more than two,” as Ms. Rowling is fond of saying).

That would mean a box office nightmare for Warner Brothers. Don’t be surprised to see some studio exec insist that the film version, “won’t have the same ending as the book.” Another Idiot move, that…

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While it’s been a publishing phenomenon, the seven-book Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling will come to an end on July 21, 2007, with the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book is the long-planned capper to the series, and will contain the deaths of two major characters, according to Rowling.

Rowling stirred media speculation as early as last summer when she said she now understands what drove Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to attempt to kill off his popular hero, Sherlock Holmes - namely, to prevent others from coming along years later and adding to the canon.

Of course, in the fantasy world of Harry Potter, even if she wrote an ending in which, say, Valdemort was victorious and left Harry, Ron and Hermoinie dead as doorknobs, that wouldn’t necessarily prevent another author coming along and reviving the characters - and the series - years from now. In fantasy, anything’s possible.

However, the identity of the killed-off characters remains under wraps, and even after it gets published, it’s likely the folks making the movie series will want to keep the roar down to a minimum, so as not to destroy interest in the final two movie installments.

Book sellers claim they have to discount the Potter series so deeply under the pressures of customer demand, they never make money on the series anymore. If that’s so, perhaps there is more money in printing and selling professional business cards than there is in Harry Potter.

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