Wild About Harry

  • PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION FOR TIME BY JACQUES BARBEY

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    Yes, Rowling acknowledges, Harry is on the brink of adolescence and will fall into that hormonal morass any day now. Harry and friends will notice, and do more than notice, members of the opposite sex, and the action starts in Book Four where they all fall in love with the wrong people. A foolishly smitten or moony Harry may challenge the devotion of the readers who admire his innocent, boyish virtues and unflappable dignity, except, perhaps, those readers who have grown into adolescents themselves.

    But Harry Potter fans have something a good deal more worrisome to fret about than potential smooching and hand holding. Rowling has been dropping increasingly pointed promises that the four remaining Harry Potter books will turn darker than the first three. "There will be deaths," she says. "I am writing about someone, Voldemort, who is evil. And rather than make him a pantomime villain, the only way to show how evil it is to take a life is to kill someone the reader cares about." Can she possibly mean (oh!) Hermione, (no!) Ron or (gasp!) Harry himself? Rowling discloses nothing, but she does note that the children who contact her "are always most worried I'm going to kill Ron. It shows how sharp they are. They've watched so many movies where the hero's best friend gets killed."

    And certain Potter purists are concerned about Harry's upcoming first appearance on the silver screen. British producer David Heyman saw a blurb on The Sorcerer's Stone shortly after its British publication but before the book became a smash. He brought the project to Warner Bros. (like TIME, owned by Time Warner), which optioned the book. The plan is for a live-action film, with Harry played as a British schoolboy. A first script, by Steven Kloves, who wrote and directed The Fabulous Baker Boys, is due by the end of the year.

    Heyman says Warner Bros. "has already got a lot of calls from parents wanting their kids to be in the movie." But, he says, "the good news is it's not a star-driven film. It's the child's film, and the child is not going to command a $20 million fee. So the primary cost will be in the special effects. We want to make all of that as believable and fantastical as possible. Technology is now incredible."

    But one of the interesting things about Hogwarts in the Potter books is that it contains no technology at all. Light is provided by torches and heat by massive fireplaces. Who needs electricity when you have plenty of wizards and magic wands? Who, for that matter, requires mail pickup and delivery when a squadron of trained owls flies messages to and from the school? Technology is for Muggles, who rely on contraptions because they cannot imagine the conveniences of magic. Who wouldn't choose a wizard's life?

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