With Prisoner of Azkhaban right around the corner, casting continues for Mike Newell’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And for Year 4, the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher — Mad-Eye Moody — will be Brendan Gleeson, most recently seen as Menelaus in Troy. I like it.
Tag: Harry Potter
Prisoner’s Dilemma.
The ten minute preview of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban, shown Sunday night on ABC, is now online. Not much to see here…all of the actual scenes shown look like a vast improvement over the Chris Columbus outings, but there’s a lot of filler to wade through first.
It’s getting Sirius.
The new Prisoner of Azkhaban trailer is online, and, look, the camera moves! We’re already a step ahead of the first two Chris Columbus outings.
Trailers A-Plenty.
Emptying out the trailer bin today, we’ve got the new Prisoner of Azkaban teaser (not appreciably different than the last preview, but still looks better than the Chris Columbus movies), a second look at Tony Scott’s Man on Fire (Denzel + little girl + slo-mo explosions = ?), the new clip for The Punisher (Much better than the last one, but I still doubt I’ll see it), and a new TV spot for The Passion of the Hellboy (Nobody likes robot Nazis.)
Getting Sirius.
The trailer for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is now online. Alfonso Cuaron, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Tim Spall…this has to be better than the first two, right?
Greeks and Geeks.
As it turns out, one of the highlights of the Matrix experience was this very impressive teaser for Troy, starring Brad Pitt (Achilles), Eric Bana (Hector), Orlando Bloom (Paris), Diane Kruger (Helen), Sean Bean (Odysseus), Brendan Gleeson (Menelaus), Peter O’Toole (Priam),and Brian Cox (Agamemnon), among others. Also in coming attraction news, some official pics of HP and the Prisoner of Azkhaban make it online, including shots of Gary Oldman as Sirius Black and Michael Gambon as the new Dumbledore. Apparently the trailer of Azkhaban arrives in a week.
The other franchises.
Lost in the hubbub over yesterday’s RotK footage were these two fanboy nuggets: the new Spiderman 2 poster and lots of new shots from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban. Well, ok then.
Who’s Scruffy-Looking?
The first pic of Gary Oldman as Sirius Black (in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban) is now online, smiling along with Ron, Alan Rickman, and two unidentified girls. Nice ink. Update: Warner Brothers pulled it.
Phoenix Rising.
So after a marathon reading session over the past day or so, I’ve finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (and now back to your regularly scheduled history tomes.) All in all, I found it another solid and compulsively readable Hogwarts adventure, although I did have some quibbles which I listed over at Max’s site. When’s Book VI coming out?
Bespectacled Freak!
The casting powers-that-be over at Sony officially announce Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus in The Amazing Spiderman. This isn’t bad casting at all, although I still think Stellan Skarsgaard or Phillip Seymour Hoffman (if he could be induced not to go too far over the top) would have been great fun. Also, the new, Michael Chabon-penned script is rumored to only feature Doc Ock here as the main villain – they have wisely decided to forego the Batman route and instead will use one Spidey arch-nemesis at a time. Update: In a similar long-rumored casting call, WB announces that Michael Gambon will play Dumbledore in the next Harry Potter film. With Gary Oldman, Timothy Spall, and most importantly Alfonso Cuaron, this one could be a definite improvement over the first two.