HBO: Hollywood Box Office this summer

Hollywood - The summer film run at the box office proved the studios still have what it takes in star power to draw in movie buffs when it comes to filling theater seats after the summer film season, raking in a record $4 billion for the studios.

The summer's box office take beat the last season record of $3.95 billion set three year's ago.

The studios brought out highly-touted films every week, including through August which is usually a low period for box office returns at the end of the summer film season.

Four sequels also set records, bringing in $300 million each in box office returns; "Spider Man", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Shrek" and "Harry Potter". Movie pundits couldn't figure out whether the release of the "Harry Potter" film this summer would have done better or worse at the box office when the final book in the series made headlines worldwide and was released at the same time as the latest movie, leaving one more film to be produced for the Potter sequel of sequels.

Coming up close behind the four record sequels this summer was "Transformers", which is still at the box office this Labor Day weekend and its sequel, "Transformers 2" is already on the drawing board.

Another hot sequel this summer was "The Bourne Ultimatum", which grossed $70 million at the box office its first week, outperforming all of the other "Bourne" films before it. So far the Bourne film has grossed $185 at the box office.

Two other films did better than most expected with "Knocked Up" grossing $147 million at the box office this summer and the comedy is still going strong. Also, the teen summer comedy "Superbad" has been holding its own in the No. 1 slot at the box office for the second week in a row.

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J.K. Rowling - Life without Harry

She is feted across the globe for her magic-filled books but now the final Harry Potter has hit the shelves, what on earth will J. K. Rowling do with herself?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, on finishing the last page of his historical novel, The White Company in 1890, cried "That's torn it!" and flung his steel-tipped pen across the study so it twanged in the wood panelling. Edward Gibbon, on finishing Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1787, after 15 years' work, went for a reflective stroll in his arboretum and recorded "a profound combination of exhilaration and melancholy".

When J.K. Rowling completed the last page of her seven-volume, multi-movie-spawning, billion-spinning, Harry Potter super-saga this year, she, too, felt the moment deserved a memorial. She was staying at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh and recorded the moment by writing in marker pen, on a marble bust, the words: "J. K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11 January 2007."

Need More? Read Full Story at: nzherald.co.nz

Harry Potter and the Deathly Book Leaks

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz

We're still a few hours away from the release of the final book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and Scholastic (Nasdaq: SCHL) is already putting out fires. The stateside publisher has been chasing down online retailers who shipped the book too soon, as well as reviewers with early critiques and cyber-spoilers who have put pages from the book online.

It probably doesn't help that Rowling, who hasn't had a problem offing key characters in recent installments, has made no bones about the need to kill a few more in the final book.

Does Harry die? Will his buddy Ron Weasley meet his literary demise? Is Hermione Granger no stranger to the grim reaper?

I don't know. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Secrets were a lot easier to keep when everyone didn't have one-click access to the rest of the world through blogs, online discussion boards, and personal websites.

Read Full News at: The Motley Fool

Related Links:

• J. K. Rowling's Official website
  

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at wikipedia