Hump Day Update

Greetings one and all!! Welcome back to the Drill!! Its the middle of the week!! Halfway to Saturday!! ;-) Lets get on with it shall we?

When We Last Left You...

OK, sorry about the teaser yesterday, but I really needed to make sure this story was even remotely true. It still might turn out to be BS or not happen at all, but even so its worth mentioning.

So as you could tell by the images in the teaser, it has something to with Disney and Harry Potter. For those of you that don't know, these two brands actually have a bit of a history together.

See, back when Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was shopping the movie rights to her beloved novels, she actually met with Disney first. Seeing as how the Walt Disney Company was synonymous with fantasy story telling and magic, she felt that the Harry Potter franchise would be a good fit. Disney of course was thrilled about getting the first look at making the books into movies. They imagined the possibilities that owning the movie rights to Harry Potter would bring and of course the money they would make.

Yes, it looked like things were going to work out for Disney and Rowling. But then Rowling threw a curveball at Disney. Seeing how many other stories Disney had changed to suit there needs, Rowling insisted on having final say on everything in the movie. When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Who gets cast, where the movie is filmed, what gets shown, what doesnt, where things go, etc. You get the idea. Well, Disney didnt like the idea of basically giving up control their films so in the end they decided they'd have to pass on Harry Potter.

This of course led to Ms. Rowling taking her movie rights down the street in Burbank to the Warner Bros Lot and after meeting with executives they quickly gave in to her demands and the rest is history.

Flash forward to today. For years now Disney has been trying to make up for letting Harry Potter slip through its fingers. Its paid large amounts of money toWarner Bros. to acquire the TV rights to the first two films in the series to air on "The Wonderful World of Disney". There's even been talk flying around about Disney purchasing Scholastic (the publishers of the Harry Potter books) just so they can own the publishing rights. But the main thing Disney has been eyeing is the biggest prize of all:

Theme Park Rights.

It seems that after years of negotiations with Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling herself, Disney may FINALLY be close to acquiring the theme park rights to Harry Potter and all his friends. Granted, this deal could still fall apart (as it has in the past) but things seem to be going so well, that it might just be a matter of time before they make the final announcement.

Please keep in mind though, that even if they DO get the rights, they wont use them right away. See, Disney would have to wait until the final book has been published before they can move forward with any ride designs or shows. So dont expect to jump on that train to Hogwarts so soon.

Still this is exciting news and the possibilities for a Harry Potter themed ride are endless.

How about a ride based on the "Knightbus"?

The Knight Bus

or being able to shop and eat on a street themed after "Diagon Alley"?

 Diagon Alley looks like Main St. doesnt it? ;-)

There are just some of things I've been thinking about. Imagine what the Imagineers can cook up?

All I can say on this is STAY TUNED. They've been close before, but never this close. Maybe the New Year will bring Disney a new franchise.

OK, hope that was worth the wait. I believe thats 2 updates this week! I might just reach that goal after all! ;-) Til the next time...

DQ