With the latest Harry Potter movie opening across North America tomorrow, “The Half-Blood Prince” is already — and perhaps expectedly — among the hottest-selling movie tickets of the year.

From Alaska to Florida, 2,500 midnight showtimes of “The Half-Blood Prince” have sold out, according to Fandango, a top movie and entertainment online ticket seller.

The website is currently selling an average of eight Harry Potter tickets per second.

It seems the British boy wizard has cast the right spell to reclaim his spot among the top 3 advance-ticket sellers of all time, a coveted honor lost last fall to “Twilight”.

In fact, by the end of the day, “The Half-Blood Prince” may even outpace “The Dark Knight” in advance-ticket sales.

“Harry Potter fans are insanely loyal,” said Fandango spokesperson Harry Medved. “And it’s clear that the online buzz and positive reviews for ‘The Half-Blood Prince’ are fueling the online ticket sales.”

This should come as a surprise to the Wall Street Journal.

An article posted Friday on their website argued that Harry Potter fans were getting too old for spellbooks and Quidditch.

The article further stated the average teen would rather spend time with “the gorgeous vampire (Robert Pattinson) who fights his own biological destiny to fall in love with Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a human girl” in the Twilight series.

While there is no denying Potter fans are growing up (the first Harry Potter book was published in 1997), are they really ready to abandon the boy wizard en masse?

The numbers suggest most fans have room for both.

Fifty-five percent of people who plan to see “The Half-Blood Prince” said they are also fans of the Twilight series of books, according to Fandango.

And 59 percent of people who plan to see “The Half-blood Prince” said they are looking forward to “New Moon”, the upcoming Twilight movie.

But there is one category where Harry Potter has Twilight beat.

While 63 percent of people planning to see “The Half-Blood Prince” are female, there is still a sizable group of males looking forward to watching Harry Potter’s latest adventure on screen.

“It’s not like Twilight,” said Medved. “That was 80-90 percent female.”

Medved added that Twilight’s popularity may have been fueled by the fact that “The Half-Blood Prince” was delayed from its original release date in November of 2008.

“A lot of fans had to satisfy themselves with ‘Twilight,’” said Medved. “I’m assuming that some went to see ‘Twilight’ to get their fantasy and romance fix.”

The draw of a romance-infused plot line has not escaped the “Half-blood Prince” producers. If this trailer is any indication of what is to come, the latest movie promises plenty of romance.

By Nivedita Bhattacharjee 
 
As Bella and Edward move ahead, Hot Topic is all set to move with them.
 
After cashing in on Twilight's success, Hot Topic has snapped up an exclusive deal for New Moon, the much awaited movie sequel to the star-crossed vampire romance.
 
And in good time too.

Priced at $22, the New Moon T-shirts might just be Hot Topic's trump card for the season, and it looks like the retailer is leaving nothing to chance when it comes to promoting them. 
 
Ads for the T-shirts hold top spots on its website.  The company has also been sending out promotional emails to leverage interest in the items, available months ahead of the movie's Nov. 20 release.
 
Pali Research analyst Amy Noblin received one such mailer, and says this unexpected arrival could benefit June sales results for the company. 
 
Hot Topic had boasted of a solid performance for months on end, but forecast a second-quarter loss, saying fewer people visited its stores after Easter.
 
The usually fashion-savvy company seems to have run into some trouble inventory-wise — its neon-bright jeans aren't selling too well, and its super-successful Twilight merchandise lost some sheen over the months.

While most analysts, including Pali's Noblin, are still upbeat on the company, one confessed in a research note to have "underestimated the impact of the Twilight franchise on the company's overall business."  Yes, it seems the lure of the vampire caught even FBR Capital Markets' Adrienne Tennant a little by surprise.
 
And Noblin says Hot Topic will need the new merchandise to match tough comparisons driven by Twilight.
 
When that is the case, will New Moon make Hot Topic stores shine bright?

(Reuters photo)

 As if the appearance of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart wasn’t enough, “Twilight” fans just got another reason to watch the MTV Movie Awards at the end of the month.

   Pattinson, Stewart and Taylor Lautner will be on hand to present the first clip from the vampire series’  highly-anticipated sequel “New Moon” on the awards show broadcast live on MTV on May 31.

  That’s six months before “New Moon” hits movie theaters in November – and didn’t they only recently start shooting it?

  Does this mean that producers expect the teen vampire flick to fly off with the “Best Movie” golden popcorn award — or most of the six other trophies, including “Best Kiss,” that it has been nominated for?

 Given the fact that voting for the “Best Movie”  category will remain open throughout the live show this year, it’s all in the hands of  “Twilight” fans to beat off the competition from Oscar champ “Slumdog Millionaire” .

 A beauty salon owner in St. Louis, Missouri, has helped filmmakers behind the upcoming vampire romance ”New Moon” avert a fiasco by returning a script for the film, a sequel to last year’s blockbuster hit “Twilight,” a source close to the studio behind the movie said on Tuesday.

 Casey Ray reportedly found the script in the rubbish bin. But rather than sell it to a celebrity news outlet thirsty to suck out details on independent studio Summit Entertainment’s “New Moon,” Ray gave the script back to the filmmakers and in exchange, she will get a pair of tickets to the premiere of the movie, which opens on Nov. 20,  a sources close to the stduio behind the movie said.

 It’s debatable how much a “New Moon” script made available to the masses would reveal about the movie, since the franchise is based on the bestselling “Twilight” book series from author Stephenie Meyer, and the book “New Moon” has already been read by millions.

But there’s no doubt that an appetite exists. The latest issue of OK! Magazine features “New Moon” stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart on the cover, with the headline “Secrets from the set.” The magazine promises to reveal what “exotic locales” the film’s stars travel to and who they’re dating.

 The source close to Summit said it’s still unclear how the script got out there. How much is at stake for the studio in the sequel?  After its Nov. 21, 2008, release “Twilight” made $380 million at worldwide box offices.  

What would you have done if you found the ”New Moon” script? Would you sell it or return it? Or would you leave it in the trash bin where you found it?

Change isn’t always good.

Especially if you’re Robert Pattinson, the former model who has catapulted to teen idol status courtesy of blockbuster vampire movie “Twilight.”

Pattinson, now filming the sequel “New Moon”, says his sudden fame has made him a “paranoid wreck” in terms of his friendships.

“I’m always really worried about ruining (friends) lives. Especially with people that aren’t famous. It’s such a massive change. I’m kind of a paranoid wreck. I’ve eaten a lot of room service,” Pattinson told Entertainment Tonight, in on-set interviews to start airing on the celebrity television program on Thursday.

The assistants, security and other hordes that come with sudden fame are also proving hard to get used to. “Now it’s funny, you can’t even get through to people on the phone. They won’t even let you ring people up. I can’t even ring down to reception and say let (visitors) up. I have to literally go down and carry them,” he said.

But Pattinson said it feels “suprisingly natural” to play lovestruck vampire Edward Cullen again, and he promises fans they will see plenty of him in the movie sequel, even though his character in the Stephenie Meyer book is mostly absent from the story.

“(In the film) it’s an illusion when he (Edward) appears. I think if you do it with voiceover as they do in the book, it would end up being quite cheesy. But it’s very subtle, my presence,” Pattinson said.

     When 22-year-old actor Robert Pattinson emerged as a big star last year for playing an alluring vampire in “Twilight,” he still drove an old beat-up BMW. 

    But he has now has leased a new car and moved on from his 20 year-old convertible BMW, whose dashboard had reportedly once caught fire while Pattinson was driving.

   Pattinson said the old junker was towed recently and that he had good reason for moving on to another ride, despite the appeal of showing he was still a regular guy who happens to be a movie star.

“I was getting a bit scared that I was going to die in it, and thinking is the street cred value worth dying for? And I kind of decided it wasn’t,” he told Reuters.

  Still, the old car appears to continue to attract Pattinson, who in “Twilight” plays a vampire in a star-crossed love affair. 

“I miss it already so I think I might go back to that one,” the actor said of his old BMW.

Pattinson knows a thing or two about cars. Growing up in Britain, his father imported luxury cars for a living. Who knows if dad would be interested in a certain 1989 BMW?

For now, Pattinson has no need for his old car. Instead of driving around Los Angeles, he is in Vancouver readying himself for production of “New Moon”, the next movie in the “Twilight” franchise which Pattinson said could be more somber than the first.

“Twilight” is about to get some more star power. Dakota Fanning, the 15-year-old actress from ”The Secret Life of Bees,” is close to signing a deal to star in ”New Moon,” the next installment in the wildly popular “Twilight” vampire romance franchise, a source close to the deal, who declined to be named, said on Monday.

Fanning in 2002 became the youngest actor ever nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for her role in the movie “I Am Sam,” in which she played the daughter of an intellectually disabled man.

Fanning is expected to play the “Twilight” vampire Jane, who is part of the Volturi coven of vampires, according to media reports that first surfaced in January when the actress expressed interest in the part.

Fanning upset some “Twilight” fans when she admitted to reporters in January that she had not read the entire four-book “Twilight” series that the movie franchise is based on. But given that the 15-year-old has schoolwork to juggle even as she takes on a fast-rising acting career, it might be best to give her a pass on that one.

Fanning is also expected to play singer Cheri Currie in biopic “The Runaways,” which would put her in a co-starring role with the lead female actress in “Twilight,” 18-year-old Kristen Stewart. 

“The Twilight Saga: New Moon” will open in theaters on Nov. 20.

Vampire romance movie “Twilight” proved a blockbuster hit last year and has made more than $356.8 million worldwide at the box office. The movie’s success was unusual for Hollywood, because at its heart “Twilight” was an indie movie, and box office leaders often come from the major studios. “Twilight” was made by independent studio Summit Entertainment and it starred Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, who went into the production as working actors and came out as instant celebrities.

Now, established celebrities are thirsty to be part of Summit’s sequel “New Moon” due out on Nov. 20. The latest stars knocking at Summit’s door are teen pop sensations The Jonas Brothers, who told MTV they would love to contribute to the “New Moon” soundtrack.  ”The movie was obviously a huge success, and if they asked us to be a part (of the sequel) that would be great,” Nick Jonas told MTV, as his brothers agreed.

Not so fast, Jonas Brothers. Not all the “Twilight” fans are happy with the idea of the Jonas Brothers, who gained their popularity on the Disney Channel, playing a part in the next installment of the movie franchise. One commentator at the MTV site wrote, “This isn’t some stupid Disney movie so stop trying to turn it into one.”

The Jonas Brothers are not the first Disney stars to eye a role in the “Twilight” franchise. Vanessa Hudgens, a star in Disney’s “High School Musical” movies, has also sought a part in the “Twilight” franchise, MTV reported last month. And Dakota Fanning, 14, one of the most famous and acclaimed child stars of recent years, is also interested in winning a part in “New Moon” as the bloodsucker Jane.

Catherine Hardwicke, who directed “Twilight,” has been replaced with Chris Weitz. That change also ruffled some feathers from “Twilight’s” passionate fan base of mostly teen girls and young women. Weitz is more of an inside Hollywood choice for the movie franchise, with proven box office success on the 1999 “American Pie” and the 2001 sequel, whereas Hardwicke before “Twilight” had more modest box office success. Even so, the style she brought to “Twilight” pleased many fans, who are still on the fence about how Weitz will handle the sequel.

 Stewart, the 18-year-old star of “Twilight” who played Bella Swan in the movie, is still adjusting to the roller coaster of fame that came with the movie. Will she thrive if called upon to star opposite Dakota or Vanessa? More importantly, how will fans react if “New Moon” becomes studded with celebrities? Will they like the change or not?

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

It may have taken a casting controversy to do it, but actor Taylor Lautner has proven he is a “Twilight” fan favorite. Those fans of the vampire romance books and movie can celebrate now, because the studio behind the film says Lautner will reprise his role as Jacob Black in the sequel “New Moon,” with earlier concerns about him being too small for the role brushed aside.
    
Stephenie Meyer, the author behind the “Twilight” book series, said in a statement on her Web site on Wednesday that she was part of the decision to recast Lautner, along with the studio Summit Entertainment. 
    
“I’m truly thrilled that Taylor was the one who proved to the director, to Summit, and to me that he is the best possible Jacob we could have,” Meyer said.
    
Jacob Black is a shape-shifter who turns into a wolf. When it became clear in December that he was not a lock for the part, “Twilight” readers cried foul on the myriad of fan Web sites that appeal to the book series’ readers, who are mostly young women and teens.
    
The problem with recasting the 16-year-old Lautner for “New Moon” was a physical one, because in the book series Jacob Black bulks up and grows about a foot taller between the first and second book. But Lautner has said he is working out for the role, and maybe he can count on a teenage growth spurt.
    
With Summit announcing late Wednesday that Lautner would be back to play Black, fans reacted quickly. On the fan Web site BellaAndEdward.com, one fan wrote, “I’ve been saying this whole time that it’s not about who is physically best for the role, it’s about who is emotionally best for the role.” On another fan site called HisGoldenEyes.com, fans said they were hyperventilating, crying and even shaking with joy at the casting choice. One fan named Tiffany wrote, “My life is complete now!” But despite the overwhelming positive reaction to the news, not everyone was happy. One fan named Khacie wrote, “What are you people thinking?! Taylor Lautner is NOT Jacob Black!”  
    
“New Moon” comes out on Nov. 20. “Twilight” has made more than $177 million in the U.S. and Canada since it came out on Nov. 21, a whopping take for a film that cost about $37 million to make.