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Strange links between bin Laden’s death and Harry Potter films

Will final movie in the series have extra emotional resonance after bin Laden’s death?

After Osama bin Laden’s death, Hollywood movie makers are seeking for a way to put his story on screen, but the first film to benefit might actually be “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the final in the Harry Potter series, which is set to come out on July 15. According to Hollywood Reporter, the entire Potter saga (books and movies) have inevitably been coloured by the events of 9/11: although the first of seven volumes was published in England in 1997, the first film was released in November 2001, just weeks after 9/11, and set up a conflict between a young, orphaned wizard who slowly develops his powers, and Lord Voldemort, committed to his destruction. Voldemort is a “formless boogie-man,” somewhat shrouded in mystery like Osama, who then takes on more physical presence until the last volume, when he and Harry go head-to-head. In 2004, a poster on mugglenet.com compared the Death Eaters in the Harry Potter series to al Qaeda. The Potter movie is set to be one of the biggest movies of the summer, but Hollywood Reporter predicts bin Laden’s death will give it extra emotional resonance, and maybe even more dollars at the box office.

Reuters

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