The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida will be getting an all-new attraction next month in the form of Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. As you might have surmised from the name of the ride, it will feature the half-giant Hogwarts gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures professor taking visitors on a journey through the Forbidden Forest and introducing us to some other magical creatures.
To give guests that feeling of truly being transported to the wizarding world, Universal Studios has unveiled their most life-life animatronic character yet, and it perfectly captures the likeness of Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid himself. Get a first look at the Universal Studios animatronic Hagrid below. Read More »
LEGO is keeping their new Harry Potter line of building brick playsets going strong with an addition of five more buildable scenes inspired by Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
New Harry Potter LEGO sets include another section of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that connects to one of the previously released sections of the castle, Hagrid’s Hut, one of the tasks from the Triwizard Tournament, a signature vehicle from the third Harry Potter film, and an all-too-important scene involving Harry’s godfather Sirius Black. Read More »
The third entry in the somewhat shaky Fantastic Beasts franchise has conjured up a release date: November 2021. Fantastic Beasts 3, which will eventually have an official, ungainly title, will continue the Harry Potter prequel series from J.K. Rowling and director David Yates. Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and all his wizard pals will return once again, like it or not.
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Universal Studios Hollywood keeps upgrading The Wizarding World of Harry Potter‘s offerings. A couple of years back, they began doing a projection mapping show on Hogwarts Castle that was called the Nighttime Lights at Hogwarts Castle. This year they are taking a turn to the Dark Arts and presenting a new nighttime light show based on the evil side of the Wizarding World.
Over the weekend, I got to attend the premiere event for the new show, Dark Arts at Hogwarts. In addition to my thoughts on the new show, I took some video of this stunning event. Watch it below.
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The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.
In this edition, take a tour of Warner Bros. Pictures old movie prop warehouse featuring iconic pieces from movies like Batman, the Harry Potter franchise, The Matrix, and more. Plus, check out Shazam! star Zachary Levi’s man cave in his garage where he seems to be a bit of a doomsday prepper, and find out some things you might not know about Quantum Leap. Read More »
So far we’ve seen the new Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments inspired by Pixar Animation, Marvel and DC Comics, and the revered sci-fi franchises of Star Wars and Star Trek. Now Christmas is getting truly magical with a new series of Harry Potter Hallmark ornaments. Not only are there new ornaments joining the ongoing collection, but Hallmark is giving the Harry Potter franchise the same light and sound treatment that they gave to some of their Star Wars ornaments. See what we’re talking about below. Read More »
(Welcome to The Soapbox, the space where we get loud, feisty, political, and opinionated about anything and everything. In this edition: the current state of J.K. Rowling’s beloved universe is…unsteady.)
Earlier this year, J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world went to shit. Literally. The Pottermore Twitter account resurfaced an innocuous piece of trivia that described the wizarding world before it had discovered indoor plumbing, in which witches and wizards would use a vanishing spell after they had, ahem, done their business. The Harry Potter fandom went wild at the prospect of wizards shitting their pants for hundreds of years. It was exactly the kind of world-building misstep for which Rowling had become infamous in recent years: constantly revising the enchanting world she had created until it felt like the entire series was just built out of trivia.
Worse yet, it’s trivia that revises her previously white, previously heterosexual world into one that feels performatively “woke” — as was the case with her most recent egregious piece of trivia: that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had an “intense” sexual relationship, which of course we’ll never get to see onscreen. It’s like if Michaelangelo had kept returning to the Sistine Chapel to layer on more inches of oil paint until his masterpiece became an unrecognizable mess.
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The mobile game Pokémon Go reignited the spark for capturing weird little monsters and making them fight each other. But Pokémon as a property isn’t for everyone. That’s why game developer Niantic Inc. is teaming up with Warner Bros. Games to bring a similar style of game play to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is a forthcoming augmented reality game that we’ve highlighted before. But official details on the gameplay haven’t been available until today. Thankfully, Niantic and WB have revealed what fans can expect from this foray into the magical world, and it will combine content and characters from both the original Harry Potter franchise and the new Fantastic Beasts series. Find out more about the Harry Potter Wizards Unite game below. Read More »
Attention, fans of paying money to wait in line! Uh, I mean fans of immersive theme park attractions! There’s a new featurette showing off Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, the new roller coaster at Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure theme park. The ride opens this summer, and if you just can’t wait that long to go to humid, sweaty Florida, perhaps this video will hold you over. Watch the featurette below.
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Cool Posts From Around the Web:
At the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, one of the challenges keeping the key to the Elixir of Life safe is a giant game of wizard chess with some pretty deadly consequences for losing a piece. But now you can bring the game home, albeit on a smaller scale, thanks to the Noble Collection’s Harry Potter wizard chess replica. Read More »
