'Harry Potter' conjures first-day record of $92.1M (AP)

LOS ANGELES – Harry Potter has cast his biggest spell yet with a record-breaking first day at the box office for his final film.

Distributor Warner Bros. reports that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" summoned up $92.1 million domestically on opening day Friday.

That's nearly $20 million more than the previous record-holder, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," which took in $72.7 million in its first day two years ago.

The film added $75 million in 57 overseas countries Friday, raising its international total to $157.5 million since it began rolling out Wednesday. That gives the film a worldwide total of about $250 million.

Among its first-day totals Friday was $14.8 million in Great Britain, which Warner Bros. reported was the biggest single day ever for a movie.

The first 3-D film in the series, "Deathly Hallows: Part 2" benefited from the higher price theaters charge for 3-D tickets, which cost a few dollars more than 2-D.

In a single day, "Deathly Hallows: Part 2" took in more money than four of the previous seven "Harry Potter" films did over their entire opening weekends.

The finale of the "Harry Potter" saga also set a record for midnight screenings with $43.5 million. That topped "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," which pulled in about $30 million in its first midnight shows last year.

Box-office tracker Hollywood.com projected Saturday that "Deathly Hallows: Part 2" also could break the opening-weekend record of $158.4 million domestically held by "The Dark Knight."

Stars mull options if 'Potter' hadn't come calling (AP)

LOS ANGELES – In some fantasy world, Daniel Radcliffe might be a low-level go-fer on movie sets. Emma Watson might be a nobody auditioning for stage plays. Tom Felton might be noodling around as a musician. And Rupert Grint might be selling ice cream on the street.

With the finale "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" arriving this week, the young stars of one of Hollywood's biggest film franchises pondered what they might be doing if the acting thing hadn't worked out.

Radcliffe:

An 11-year-old when picked for the title role of the "Harry Potter" franchise, Radcliffe figures that since his parents worked in the arts — his mother as a casting director, his father as a literary agent — he would have ended up in show business. But not as an actor, probably as an assistant director.

"What probably would have happened, when I got to about 17, 18, and it became apparent, as it would have done, to my parents that I wasn't going to be going to university, I'm sure they probably would have tried to get me, like, an internship on a film as a runner. And then I'd just try to work my way up the A.D. ladder from there," said Radcliffe, whose pre-"Harry Potter" acting work included the title role in a British television production of "David Copperfield."

"To this day, I still fancy myself as a bit of an A.D. Anyone who works with me will tell you if they give me a radio, I constantly kind of try to run messages between people, that I always like to know exactly what's going on around the set. So if somebody's saying, `Where's so and so? We need them now,' I can go, `They're there. That person's coming back. They've just gone to the toilet.' I really like to know exactly what's going on at all times on set, because I like to feel that's another way in which I can make myself useful."

Watson:

Just 10 when she was cast as bookish Hermione Granger, Watson had no previous professional acting experience. Yet she's convinced that no matter how she would have gone on to make a living, acting still would have been part of her life.

"I would have found some way to end up acting, performing. I mean, obviously, not on this scale, but I would have been doing it, I'm sure," Watson said. "I would have been doing plays. I'm almost a hundred percent sure I would be doing plays, I would be acting. I mean, that would be a sideline thing for me. I would be focusing toward some kind of career that I'm not really sure of now, but I definitely would have been performing, some way or another."

Grint:

Also a screen newcomer when chosen at 11 to play jittery but stalwart sidekick Ron Weasley, Grint finds it daunting to imagine a life in which he never landed among the "Harry Potter" clan.

"I don't know. It's quite a scary thought. I saw recently, they put on one of the DVDs, footage from our screen tests when we were first kind of auditioning. In one of them, there was a test with Emma and Dan with a different Ron, another kid who was auditioning at the same time. That was very weird to see that, because he was good. I probably would have picked him.

"It was weird to think what I'd be doing now. ... I'd have probably gone down the art route. I wanted to design hats for a while when I was really young. And being an ice cream man was another dream, but I've kind of let go of that now. I bought an ice cream van and brought it up, actually, on the last day and served ice cream to the crew. I don't really drive it too much now, because you get people queuing up on the street."

Felton:

Like Radcliffe and Watson, the guy who co-starred as bullying Draco Malfoy expects he would have wound up doing some sort of creative work. Also like Radcliffe, Felton had previous acting experience before "Harry Potter," appearing in the fantasy film "The Borrowers" and Jodie Foster's "Anna and the King."

"My brother and I often talk about it. Where would I be and what would I be doing? I like to think something creative. I've always been fairly minded that way, certainly with music and fooling around as a kid with a video camera," said Felton, who was 12 when cast in "Harry Potter." "I'd like to think it would be something in that realm.

"It certainly was not going to be sitting behind an office. If I did, I wouldn't be happy doing it. So I've been very lucky that I've been able to follow a passion of mine from a very young age. A lot of people aren't so fortunate. A lot of friends now are working jobs they can't stand just so they can get enough money to go traveling or to start their own business or to do whatever they want. I've just been blessed to start in the industry that I want to continue with."

Harry Potter actors bid adieu to their characters (AP)

LONDON – Daniel Radcliffe will miss being an action hero. Emma Watson will miss being a role model. Robbie Coltrane will simply miss getting to play a good guy.

The cast and crew of the "Harry Potter" movies have been saying goodbye to their characters on the eve of the premiere of the eighth and final film in the magical adventure series.

When they met the press at a valedictory news conference Wednesday, it felt like the last day of school — a warm mixture of release and regret.

Radcliffe, Watson and Rupert Grint have grown up in the films over the past decade, playing young wizards Harry, Hermione and Ron as they progress through Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and fight the dark forces of Lord Voldemort.

Watson said was it is still "difficult to process" the fact that she won't be playing Hermione again.

The 21-year-old said she would miss the brave, brainy young witch, who was not just a role but a role model.

"I think of her like a sister," Watson said. "She feels so real to me. ... Of course I will miss the people, but actually I will just miss being her.

"I think she made me a better person, and she made me work harder, just as a result of comparing myself to her every day."

Grint, 21, said he felt bereft that the series had ended.

"I have felt a little bit lost without it, really, not really knowing what to do with myself," Grint said. "It's been such a constant part of my life."

Radcliffe — who appeared on tape from New York, where he is starring in a Broadway production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" — said he would miss the cast and crew, and the stunts.

"I don't really have the natural frame and stature of an action hero," the modestly sized 20-year-old actor said. "So it's kind of a gift for a young actor to be able to do all that stuff. ... Bursting out of the water surrounded by a ring of fire: I will never get to do that again."

Scottish actor Coltrane — who has played the friendly giant Hagrid since the start of the series — said the films were "the first time in my entire career that I've played a thoroughly good man."

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" has its premiere Thursday in London and opens around the world next week. It brings Harry's saga to a close 10 years after the launch of the first film, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," and four years after the publication of the final book in J.K. Rowling's adventure series.

More than 20 members of the cast and crew — from producer David Hayman and director David Yates to assorted Hogwarts teachers and red-haired Weasley siblings — spoke to reporters Wednesday under the grand neo-Gothic vaults of London's St. Pancras Hotel.

It was a sentimental occasion. Everyone, magic or muggle, paid tribute to their colleagues. Several spoke of the Potter "family" and rejected the idea of the films as a "franchise."

Yates, who has directed the last four Potter movies, said the cast and crew had a strong bond.

"We've all been to the moon together, as it were, and I think that's special," he said.

Evanna Lynch, the Irish actress and Harry Potter fan who was cast, aged 14, as flighty Hogwarts pupil Luna Lovegood, said she had no idea what she would do next.

"I'm distraught that this is over," said 19-year-old Lynch. "I've been obsessed with this book since I was eight, so I don't really know what I was before that or what will come next.

"Apparently they are opening a Harry Potter Experience thing where Leavesden (Studios) was. I am available as a tour guide."

The "Harry Potter" films have been big box office hits, but largely overlooked by the Academy Awards and other major prizes.

Yates said he said he was more proud of the approval of fans, like those camped out in London's Trafalgar Square before Thursday's premiere in "a mini-Glastonbury of people from all over the world who have been camping out in the rain for the last three nights."

"That's more of a compensation than lots of trophies," he said.

Harry Potter star says he no longer drinks (AP)

LONDON – Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe said he has given up drinking alcohol after realizing he was partying too hard.

The 21-year-old actor says he began to drink too much while filming "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince," the sixth movie in the Harry Potter series, in 2009.

He said; "I became so reliant on (alcohol) to enjoy stuff. There were a few years there when I was just so enamored with the idea of living some sort of famous person's lifestyle that really isn't suited to me."

He added that he decided to cut out drinking altogether, instead of simply cutting down.

"As much as I would love to be a person that goes to parties and has a couple of drinks and has a nice time — that doesn't work for me. I do that very unsuccessfully," he said.

"I'd just rather sit at home and read, or go out to dinner with someone, or talk to someone I love, or talk to somebody that makes me laugh."

Radcliffe was speaking to GQ magazine in an interview released Monday.

Radcliffe shot to fame aged 11 after he was cast as Harry Potter for the movie adaptations of J.K. Rowling's popular books about a teenage wizard.

Many child actors have struggled to cope with adulthood, but Radcliffe said he was determined to prove that child actors could go on to build long careers.

"If I can make a career for myself after Potter, and it goes well, and is varied and with longevity, then that puts to bed the 'child actors argument,'" he said.

The last movie in the series "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part II" premieres on Thursday.

Harry Potter series to be sold as e-books

23 June 2011 Last updated at 12:30 GMT JK Rowling on Potter and the future of print and digital books

The seven Harry Potter novels are to be sold as e-books for the first time in October.

Author JK Rowling announced the series will also be available as audiobooks through a new website, Pottermore.

The interactive website will also feature new material which Rowling says she has been "hoarding for years".

"This is such a great way to give something back to the fans who made Harry Potter such a huge success," the author said.

The Harry Potter novels have sold more than 450 million copies through Bloomsbury in Britain, and Scholastic in the United States.

However the e-books - which will be available in several languages - will be published through Rowling's Pottermore Publishing, rather than her print publishers which do not own the digital rights.

'New stuff'

Pottermore will go live on 31 July - Harry Potter's birthday.

Rowling told the BBC that the new material was being released online, rather than in a new book, because she did not have "a new story".

"Most of this writing is material I generated while I was writing the books initially," she said.

"It's background, and lots of details that didn't make it into the book.

"Some of it is new stuff in response to things fans have asked me over the years."

The site, which Rowling said she had been working on for two years, promises to immerse users in the boy wizard's world, offering opportunities for computer gaming, social networking and an online store.

Sections let users shop for wands in Diagon Alley, travel to Hogwarts from the imaginary platform at London's King's Cross train station and be sorted into Hogwarts' school houses using the Sorting Hat.

One million users will initially be chosen to help develop the online world, before it is open to all users from October.

Rowling told reporters at the London Pottermore launch she had no intention of writing an eighth Harry Potter book.

"I do have closure with Harry. I'm pretty sure I'm done on the novel front, but it was fun while it lasted," she said.