Over the past year or so Warner Bros. has been releasing Ultimate Editions of the previous Harry Potter movies which contain behind the scenes extras and footage not included on the original releases.

Now it’s time for the release of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Ultimate Editions, which may be in June.

According to Home Media Magazine each ultimate edition has a new hour of the “Creating the World of Harry Potter” documentary series, which will total to eight hours when completed. Additionally the sets include a digital copy of the film, more than four hours of special features and such collectibles as a 44-page photo book, limited edition character cards and a lenticular card.

Check out the Blu-ray features below:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Ultimate Edition Includes:

* Creating the World of Harry Potter Part 5: Evolution
* Deeper. Bolder. Darker. As the eight Harry Potter films trace Harry’s journey from innocent schoolboy to selfless hero, the series undergoes a transformation.Creating the World of Harry Potter Part 5: Evolution – packed with exclusive content only available here – takes you along for every exciting step of the 10-year filmmaking odyssey. Join the four directors, key members of the crew and cast, including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, as they explore how the creative vision for the films evolved to maintain the integrity and increasing intensity of J.K. Rowling’s expansive literary series. From the ever-changing architecture of Hogwarts Castle and expanding landscape of the wizarding world, to the darkening color palette of each successive film, to the young actors maturing along with their characters, it is a wondrous and spectacular adventure to experience.

Disc 1 – Movie with In-Movie Experience! Explore the People, Places, Creatures and the Moviemaking Magic Behind Them, All As You Watch the Movie

Disc 2 – Special Features

* Creating the World of Harry Potter Part 5: Evolution
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Behind the Magic
* Building the Magic: The Sets of Harry Potter
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Fulfilling a Prophecy
* Additional Scenes in Hi-Def
* Trailing Tonks: Natalia Tena (aka Nymphadora Tonks) Leads a Very Personal Film Set Tour
* Harry Potter: The Magic of Editing: Director David Yates and Editor Mark Day Show What a Difference a Good Edit Makes
* Theatrical Trailers

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Ultimate Edition Includes:

* Creating the World of Harry Potter Part 6: Magical Effects
* In Harry Potter’s world, portraits come to life, potions transform, time reverses, Quidditch players soar, dragons attack and magic is everywhere. Explore the moviemaking magic that created the wizardry and wonder of the Harry Potter film series. Now, fascinating new insights, interviews and watch-it-happen footage let you experience the triumphs of technical wizards who conjured up an awe-inspiring alternate reality. Share the fun as Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson negotiate the moving stairs. Marvel as an oversized water tank transforms into the depths of the black lake for the Triwizard Tournament. Discover which amazing sequence was filmed entirely using computer-generated imagery. Watch as blue- and green-screen backgrounds transform into towering structures and endless landscapes. You don’t know the magic until you’ve seen Creating the World of Harry Potter Part 6: Magical
Effects.

The Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Ultimate Edition on Blu-ray Disc will contain the following special features:

Disc 1 – Movie

* Featuring Maximum Movie Mode. Daniel Radcliffe leads a unique, personal exploration of the movie while you watch!
* Picture-in-Picture
* Focus Featurettes
* Scene Comparisons

Disc 2 – Special Features

* Creating the World of Harry Potter Part 6: Magical Effects
* Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Behind the Magic
* Additional Scenes in Hi-Def
* J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life: A Personal Look at the Journey in Creating and Launching the Final Book
* Close Up with the Cast of Harry Potter: Cast Members Are Your Personal Guides to Aspects of Moviemaking That Include Editing, Makeup, Stunt, Set Design, Props, Costumes and More!
* The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Get a Sneak Peak at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Universal Orlando Resort
* What’s on Your Mind?: Lightning-Round Q&A with Cast/Crew
* One-Minute Drills: Cast Members Sum Up Their Characters
* Gallery of Five Distinctive Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ABC Family Promo Spots
* Theatrical Trailers

This June 14th release will likely capitalize on the release of the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which hits a month later on July 15th.

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For the 10 of you that currently own one of those expensive 3D TV’s then it’s time to get happy, as Warner Bros. is currently in the process of converting Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince into 3D for a Blu-ray release sometime in the future.

According to Variety Prime Focus London, the company behind the Clash of the Titans conversion, is working on it however the conversion won’t be a rush job so it should turn out well.

We recently heard that Warner Bros. has cancelled the 3D conversion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 as they didn’t have enough time to do a decent job, however they will be converting Part 2 which won’t be released until next July. Director David Yates is currently working on post-production for both films, and he won’t be turning his attention to the conversion of his previous Potter movies until early next year.

If Warner Bros. intends to release all the previous films on 3D Blu-ray it will likely require the involvement of directors Chris Columbus, Mike Newell and Alfonso Cuaron.

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Today the nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards were announced, and as expected Avatar picked up quite a few in a number of categories. Sandra Bullock, Christoph Waltz, Jeremy Renner, Morgan Freeman, Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep also recieved nominations for their acting.

You can see the full list of nominations below:

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up in the Air

Actor in a Leading Role
Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
George Clooney – Up in the Air
Colin Firth – A Single Man
Morgan Freeman – Invictus
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker

Actor in a Supporting Role
Matt Damon – Invictus
Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
Helen Mirren – The Last Station
Carey mulligan – An Education
Gabourey Sidibe – Precious
Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia

Actress in a Supporting Role
Penelope Cruz – Nine
Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
Mo’Nique – Precious

Animated Feature
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Art Direction
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Cinematography
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

Directing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Up in the Air

Music (Original Score)
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
Up

Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
District 9
An Education
In The Loop
Precious
Up in the Air

Writing (Original Screenplay)
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up

The winners will be revealed on March 7th in a ceremony presented by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.

Read similar posts to 2010 Oscar nominations announced at Filmonic

The Academy released a list of 15 films in contention for the 2010 Visual Effects Oscar last month, and now they’ve narrowed the list down to 7 films. Here they are:

Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Star Trek
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2012

Later this month members of the visual effects branch will watch excerpts from the movies, and the list will then be narrowed down to 3. Earlier this year it was a showdown between Iron Man, The Dark Knight and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with Button’s ageing effects coming out on top.

If I were a betting man i’d put my money on Avatar. It’ll be interesting to see which 3 make it through to the next round.

Which film do you think should win the Visual Effects Oscar?

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Every day between now and 2010 I will be posting some of the best trailers that were released this year, regardless of whether the eventual film sucked or not. Yesterday it was the third trailer for Star Trek, and today it is the third trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which was released in April.

For a reason I can’t quite remember I stopped watching the Harry Potter movies after Prizoner of Azkaban so I wasn’t really passionate about the early trailers for Half-Blood Prince. It was a case of writing “here’s the trailer, it looks darker than the others, enjoy”. However after watching this third trailer which featured bridges being destroyed, Dumbledore encircled by fire, flying Death Eaters and epic music, it reignited my inner wizard.

Within 2 weeks of the trailer’s release I rented all 5 movies to catch-up, and I saw Half-Blood Prince the day it opened. I then decided to buy all the books and read them within the space of 3 weeks so I could join in with the Deathly Hallows hype. This one trailer has turned me into a Harry Potter nut.

Here it is:

What did you think of the trailer? Was it the best trailer for Half-Blood Prince?

I’ll be posting another trailer tomorrow, and if you have any suggestions feel free to send it over in an email or leave it in the comments section below.

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Twitter grew tremendously in 2009, mainly because it has become a people search engine. News, events, and movies become trending topics and you can see what people are saying about them in real-time. As we will soon be heading into 2010 Twitter has complied a list of the top trending topics (ie. most talked about) of 2009 for different categories, and below is the list of movies that took over the Twitter-sphere this year:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe

I have no idea what True Blood is doing there. Harry Potter and New Moon were expected, however the movie that takes the #3 spot is interesting. I can remember around the time District 9 was released Twitter was full of positive buzz for the film, and that buzz most likely encouraged people to see it. I have no way of proving it but I’m pretty sure the Twitter buzz contributed to the film making over $200 million worldwide. Twitter probably contributed to the success of Paranormal Activity too.

What can we expect for next year? Well we have Eclipse and Deathly Hallows being released so they will probably hit the top spots again. I can imagine Iron Man 2 becoming a trending topic for a while, and maybe Kick-Ass will be the ‘District 9′ of 2010?

(You can follow Filmonic on Twitter here)

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The 82nd Academy Awards will be held next March and the 15 movies nominated for the Visual Effects Oscar have been revealed. Here they are:

Angels & Demons
Avatar
Coraline
Disney’s A Christmas Caro
District 9
G-Force
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2012
Watchmen
Where the Wild Things Are

In early January the list will be narrowed down to 7, then later in the month members of the visual effects branch will watch excerpts from the movies, and the list will be narrowed down to 3. Earlier this year it was a showdown between Iron Man, The Dark Knight and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with Button’s ageing effects coming out on top.

Since Avatar Day when we got a glimpse at 15 minutes of footage I’ve had my money on Avatar winning, and from the early reviews it seems it will be a serious contender. I’m glad District 9 got a nod. Out of all the films nominated it had the lowest budget ($30 million) and the guys at WETA did a great job with those financial constraints.

Which visual effects wowed you in 2009? Who do you want to win the Visual Effects Oscar?

Read similar posts to 2010 Visual Effects Oscar Nominees announced at Filmonic

Today (December 12th) at 12 noon PST/3PM EST/8PM GMT Daniel Radcliffe and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince director David Yates will be taking part in a live community screening event. During this event people from all over the world will watch the film at the same time with Radcliffe and Yates adding their thoughts, and they will also be answering questions from fans.

In order to participate in this event, you must have the following:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Blu-ray Disc
2. A Blu-ray Player that supports BD-Live
3. Your Blu-ray Player must be connected to the Internet
4. A computer connected to the Internet (to ask questions)

You will also need to register a BD-Live account with Warner Bros.

Here’s another reminder of the times: 12 noon PST/3PM EST/8PM GMT

Filmonic will be live blogging this event, so if you plan on attending the live screening you can visit this page to comment and share your thoughts with other fans. If you do not own Half-Blood Prince on Blu-ray then you can watch it all go down below:

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In preparation for the awards season Warner Bros. have released the original screenplay for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We don’t usually get the chance to read scripts as they are kept under tight security during production, and then when the film is released we don’t really need it because we have the completed form for our viewing pleasure. I think I’ll read this one over the weekend just out of interest. According to SnichSeeker there are a few scenes that didn’t make it into the film, and some dialogue changes.

You can download the PDF file by clicking here. You can also check out the ‘For your consideration’ page for Half-Blood prince here.

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be released on DVD and Blu-ray next month (Amazon are currently selling the DVD for $10) and to gear people up Warner Bros. are starting to release some behind the scenes stuff, along with some deleted scenes that didn’t make it into the movie.

The scene below gives us an extended look at the students and professors as the clouds darken before the Death Eaters invasion. I can’t really see why it was cut down, but I’m sure they have their reasons.

Read similar posts to Deleted Half-Blood Prince scene at Filmonic