The “Harry Potter” books may be complete, but there are still three full length films coming, to make a whopping eight Harry Potter movies in total. The movie version of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, will be in theaters at the end of this November. And the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which was chock full of plot that sped by at a breakneck pace, is going to be split up into two films in order to cover all the stuff that happened. (Rowling has not definitively ruled out another book, saying “I will not say never, but I have no plans to write an eighth book.” She later clarified that if she did write another book it wouldn’t be for at least another 10 years.)

The films have made around $4.5 billion at the box office, and that’s not counting the books and merchandise, which are said to make the franchise worth $15 billion. So you can’t blame them for wanting to milk this for all it’s worth, but it’s also supposedly to be true to the plot of Deathly Hallows:

Warner Bros. Pictures and the producers behind the $4.5-billion film franchise featuring the beloved boy wizard will split the seventh and final novel in the J.K. Rowling series into two films.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I” will hit theaters in November 2010, followed by “Part II” in May 2011, a decision that is being met around the world with fans’ cheers but also plenty of cynical smirks. The publishing industry is learning to live without new “Potter” releases, but Hollywood just pulled off a trick that will keep its profitable hero on his broom into the next decade.

Any twist in the “Potter” universe is the stuff of global news bulletins. The books were a publishing sensation. And to an entire generation, the film saga has become a heartfelt touchstone on the level of “The Wizard of Oz” and as culturally and commercially ubiquitous as the “Star Wars” series. For all those reasons, everyone involved in the franchise is jumping forward to say an eighth film would be to serve the story, not the bottom line.

Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the franchise, said it was the dense action of the final novel that made the decision, not any executive or ledger.

“I think it’s the only way you can do it, without cutting out a huge portion of the book,” Radcliffe said. “There have been compartmentalized subplots in the other books that have made them easier to cut — although those cuts were still to the horror of some fans — but the seventh book doesn’t really have any subplots. It’s one driving, pounding story from the word go.”

The same could be said about the relentless “Potter” franchise, which hit screens for the first time in 2001. The five “Potter” films to date have averaged $282 million in U.S. grosses, but the overall receipts go well beyond that. The faces of the stars stare out from DVDs, video games, tie-in books, toys, clothing, candy wrappers and a staggering array of other items. By some estimates, the brand represents a $20-billion enterprise, and that’s without the planned “Potter”-themed complex opening next year at the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida.

[From The LA Times]

I’ve read all the Harry Potter books and have seen all of the films, in most cases right when they came out. At first I was a big fan, but by the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, I thought that the tone changed and that Rowling was trying to cram too much in. This didn’t stop me from devouring the rest of the books and films, so it’s not like the quality dropped that much, and maybe it was inevitable that they evolved and grew along with the characters.

The last book was disappointing to me, and I know a lot of you will disagree. I will admit that I read it quickly and could not put it down and that it was very entertaining. It just didn’t get into the characters enough for me and it seemed like too much was happening on a surface level. I also was kind of baffled by the afterlife subplot, and thought that part was totally unnecessary. You could almost tell that Rowling was harried when she wrote it, and that she was trying to tie up all the loose ends instead of get into the motivations and psychology of the characters. The end part where everyone was married and happy bugged the shit out of me, too. (I know this is said to have been written well ahead of the final book, and that Rowling was supposedly doing everyone a favor by letting us know. She should have saved it, IMO.)

I’ll see these movies, and they’re going to be blockbusters that are entertaining and engaging, like all the other Harry Potter films. Even though I thought Deathly Hallows was the “worst” Harry Potter book, that’s definitely relative. It was still fun to read and full of compelling scenes, and the films are sure to be the same. The last Lord of The Rings movie, The Return of The King, could have easily been broken up into two films too, but it kept my interest until the end. And I would have paid $20 to see it.

Images are stills from Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, thanks to Allmoviephoto.