Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and others were joined by author J.K. Rowling at the London premiere of the newest Harry Potter film The Half-Blood Prince at Leicester Square last night. Despite the buckets of rain that fell all night long, hundreds of fans came out to catch a glimpse or score an autograph of their fave Harry Potter stars as they walked the red carpet last night. Here are a few pics from the arrivals last night along with some info from the event:

If Potions Professor Horace Slughorn had mixed a brew to conjure up torrential rain, the weather could not have been worse for the premiere of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” Dedicated fans braved thunder, lightning and Biblical downpours in London’s Leicester Square to catch a glimpse of the film’s stars arriving at the opening of the sixth film in the wildly popular “Harry Potter” franchise. While dreadful weather has become an unfortunate tradition at Potter premieres (it rained during the 2007 premiere of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”), the latest installment holds something new for fans. “The Half-Blood Prince” offers up an uncommonly large helping of humor as Harry, Hermione and Ron enter their sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. “I think this film’s funnier,” said star Daniel Radcliffe who plays the titular young hero. “There are a couple of moments which I laughed out loud at.” Hormones are also running high inside the castle walls, with romances blossoming between some of the formerly chaste characters. But, says director David Yates, for all the romance and humor, the film still has a very dark side. “It is a bit bipolar,” Yates told CNN. “On the one hand, there’s all this snogging and romance and on the other hand people are getting killed and bridges are being blown up.” “The humor is there to kind of leaven the intensity of what happens later on in the movie,” he added. If the latest Harry Potter installment treads more adult terrain, it’s not just because the three lead actors — who started as unknown children — have grown up. The three have amassed huge fortunes and international recognition off the back of the films. Daniel Radcliffe wowed Broadway by going nude in “Equus,” Emma Watson has become the face of Burberry and Rupert Grint recently hit the headlines with a dose of swine flu. A dark storyline runs through the core of “The Half-Blood Prince”: The ascendancy of the malevolent Lord Voldemort threatens the wizarding world, while tragic events provide some genuinely scary moments and spell the end of childhood for Harry and the others. “I think it’s aimed at a slightly older audience,” says Emma Watson, 19, who plays bookish heroine Hermione Granger in the franchise. “I think the films have grown up with the audience” … Fans have had to wait an extra eight months for the latest installment after Warner Bros (which, like CNN, is owned by Time Warner) delayed the release of the movie after the success of “The Dark Knight” to spread out its blockbusters. It is estimated the film cost $250 million to make. The last film, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” came out in 2007 and took $938 million at the box office worldwide. The five films have so far made $4.5 billion in worldwide box office, making it the most successful movie franchise in history. The Harry Potter franchise is based on the best-selling series of books by British writer J.K Rowling. The first film, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” directed by Chris Columbus, was released in 2001.

OMG RELEASE THIS MOVIE ALREADY!!! We still have about a week left to wait for the film to hit theaters and I’m already freakin’ out about it. The Harry Potter story gets seriously serious in Half-Blood Prince and I can’t wait to see it on the big screen. Even tho those Londoners had to get soaked to the bone at last night’s premiere, I envy that they’ve been able to see the film already. I can’t even wait any more … Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens in theaters on July 15. Are y’all as excited as I am?

[Photo credit: Splash News; Source]

A couple weeks ago we got our first look at the amazing promo photos that have been released from Tim Burton’s new film Alice In Wonderland, featuring the beloved literary characters The Mad Hatter (played by Johnny Depp), The Red Queen (played by Helena Bonham Carter), The White Queen (played by Anne Hathaway) and more. The new issue of Vanity Fair magazine, the one with Heath Ledger on the cover, features another look at the full-size promo photos:

These photos are the same ones we saw previously but VF mag does publish the full-size photographs that the Technicolored promo pics were based on. After the jump, check them out for yourselves …

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Last November we got our very FIRST LOOK at Johnny Depp in full make-up and costume as The Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s new film, Alice in Wonderland. Today, we get to see a whole slew of new promo photos from the upcoming Disney film including finished character art of Depp as The Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as The White Queen and Matt Lucas as Tweedledee & Tweedledum. First up, tho, check out these very cool-looking promo pics from the film of Wonderland itself:

Burton gave us a grief-wracked demon barber in 2007’s Sweeney Todd and oodles of Oompa Loompas in 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Now one of Hollywood’s most visually creative directors layers his own surreal sensibilities upon the fanciful world of Lewis Carroll in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, due in theaters on March 5, 2010. This first look at some of the concept art for the film suggests there is the usual Burton dark magic afoot.

Yes, yes … these images are really beautiful and hint at a more sinister Wonderland than we may be accustomed to … but it is the character art that really gives you a good feel for the tone of the film. After the jump, check out the amazing promo images of The Mad Hatter, The Red Queen, The White Queen and The Tweedles …

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Yesterday we got our first look at Helena Bonham Carter in the role of Bellatrix Lestrange on the London set of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows … and today we get to see a few more pics from the set. This time, we get to see principal stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and Emma Watson (Hermoine Granger) chillin’ on the set in between takes … and another photo of Bellatrix being her usual evil self:

There are other more spoilery photos but I don’t want to post too many pics this early in the filming. We’ve got plenty of time to see little teaser pics from the set. Deathly Hallows is going to be an epic film, I can just feel it. The book itself is too huge to be contained by just one movie. The film will prolly be the one Harry Potter movie that will contain almost all of the best bits from the book. Previously, the films had to cut content to fit in the time constraints. This 2 part film will have lots of time to do the final Harry Potter book justice. But … while all of this Hallows talk is very exciting, we still have The Half-Blood Prince to look forward to this Summer. So much Harry Potter!! Woot!

[Photo credit: Splash News]

Production has begun on the first part of the new film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in the UK this month and Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the wickedly evil Bellatrix Lestrange, was spotted on the set of the film in Pembrokeshire, Wales lookin’ about as fierce as can be … behold:

Bellatrix is deffo the HBIC in Voldermort’s army of minions. She is absolutely one of my favorite characters. I cannot imagine anyone else playing the role of Bellatrix other than Helena Bonham Carter, mostly because Bellatrix at her most dastardly is pretty much what Helena looks like on a daily basis. She rules! I hope we get to see more from the set of Harry Potter as filming continues in the weeks to come.

[Photo credit: INFdaily]