New Photo: Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows; Naked Harry Appears In The Film?

Just as there's talk of the last Twilight novel being adapted into two films, here we've got the first official photo from the first of two films that will adapt the final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There was that photo of Harry walking around in a misty forest that showed up many months ago, but this is the first official look at the heroic trio of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson). Isn't it special?

USA Today has the pic, and also a bit of a tease about what we'll see in the film(s), though one would expect that having that big source novel out there would have given most of it away by now. All that the paper gives out is that most of the film takes place outside of Hogwarts and that director David Yates describes it as more grounded in reality. Producer David Heyman even calls it a road movie. Harry Potter road trip, yay!

Meanwhile, a piece at VideoBusiness detailing the DVD release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has got fansites worked up thanks to a mention that, in the last film, Harry will be nekkid. This could be called spoilerish, I suppose, but Yates describes a scene where "a horcrux [carrying a piece of Voldemort's soul] defends itself by producing nightmarish visions, and one shows Hermione and Harry embracing and kissing. It's something intriguing and sensual for Rupert to react to, and Dan will be bare for that." Take that, Twihards.

Is releasing this photo now meant to be a bit of an antidote to Twilight? Perhaps a tactic to spur book and DVD sales of Potter merch? The first part of Deathly Hallows doesn't hit theatres until November 2010, while part two will drop in 2011. Nearly a year to wait, then, but at least you can print out this photo and keep it under your pillow for the next few months.