Harry Potter’s website delayed October 3, 2011 THE LAUNCH of the highly anticipated Harry Potter website Pottermore has been delayed after a test version of the site experienced higher than expected traffic. The site will host the first e-book editions of the boy wizard’s tales and is expected to be a financial boon for its author JK Rowling and publisher Bloomsbury. Meanwhile, Warner [...]
Bloomsbury to raise books from the dead September 28, 2011 HARRY Potter publisher Bloomsbury says it will bring out-of-print titles “back from the dead” through a new digital-only imprint. The publisher will focus on books whose English-language rights have reverted back to the author or the author’s estate. Digital sales currently account for around 10 per cent of Bloomsbury’s turnover, with the publisher expecting this [...]
The latest gadgets that will help turn your home into a 3D palace September 21, 2011 3D technology is having a moment. No longer just the add-on special effect confined to the realm of cinemas and the odd Derren Brown show on television, it is now the hero embracing its mainstream appeal. With companies such as Sony, LG and Samsung leading the charge with gadgets that let you recreate the 3D [...]
LONDON’S MAYORS IN THE FRAME FOR STYLE September 4, 2011 WHO ARE the City’s most stylish cyclists? Boris Johnson and Michael Bear, says fashion photographer Horst A Friedrichs, who has immortalised the Mayor of London and the Lord Mayor in a Square Mile photography exhibition of London cyclists on their two-wheeled vehicle of choice. Johnson and Bear are joined in the City Cycle Style exhibition, [...]
Harry Potter magic lifts Cineworld August 18, 2011 CINEWORLD yesterday said it had started the second half strongly, with the latest Harry Potter film fuelling an increase in ticket sales. The group has hiked its dividend despite a drop in first-half profit, triggered by one-off costs. Revenues rose one per cent to £163.6m in the six months to the end of June. Operating [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: IS CINEWORLD COPING WELL IN THE TOUGH MARKET? August 18, 2011 GEETANJALI SHARMA | ESPIRITO SANTO This is a very encouraging set of results from Cineworld. It is encouraging to note that despite Avatar and Alice in Wonderland being in the first half 2010 comparatives and Harry Potter not included in first half 2011, Cineworld’s admissions are up 2.2 per cent year on year. NIGEL PARSON [...]
Potter boosts Bloomsbury August 11, 2011 PUBLISHER Bloomsbury has once again been boosted by the magic of Harry Potter. The release of the latest movie version of JK Rowling’s boy-wizard has waved a wand over sales figures for the entire range of children’s novels. This, coupled with surging ebook sales, led to a “significant improvement” in sales during July and August. [...]
POACHERS TURNED GAMEKEEPERS SNARE GOLDMAN WITH BEST BREW July 18, 2011 SHARP-suited, discerning of taste and with a generous disposable income they can easily take elsewhere. Yes, the Goldman crew are a tough crowd – but even the investment bank’s most hard-nosed deal-makers are being won over by the new Italian opposite the Goldman Sachs fortress on Fleet Street, which is gaining a reputation for the [...]
Harry Potter nets £300m July 17, 2011 THE final Harry Potter film has shattered worldwide box office records with $476m (£295m) in global ticket sales since it opened last week. And the $168.6m US and Canadian takings for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2” is the best three-day opening for a film ever, distributor Warner Bros said yesterday. It [...]
An absolutely wizard send off July 14, 2011 Film HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART II Cert:12A THE closing episode in the decade-long Harry Potter saga is pretty much as epic, as entertaining and as impressive as you’d hope it could be. After the flabby slowness of Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows Part One, this rips us along on a tumultuous tide [...]