Here’s a chance for everyone that lives in the UK to win a walk on role in HBP. This contest is open to any UK resident 12 years or older and is sponsored by MSN UK. See here.

Warner Brothers has released a new behind the scenes video showing how they made the thestrals take flight with Daniel Radcliffe and Evanna Lynch. See it here.

Jim Hill Media has a new article about Universal studios where it talks about the upcoming Harry Potter Theme park set to open late 2009 - early 2010. Apparently we should expect to start seeing advertising campaigns featuring clips from all 5 films.

Universal is planning on having a big “Holidays at Hogwarts” to try and rival Disneys domination of the holiday time themed parks. Either way it all sounds verry exciting!

The official website for the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie has a new look!

 There are many new features and clickabels, like a new downloadable countdown clock, and a link to the sweepstakes page. The Dumbledore’s Army page also recieved an upgrade, with a banner to put on your site/blog.

 There is also a link to The Official OoTP DVD site, with  a demo video of the Interactive DVD Game. There is info on the 5 movie DVD giftset, and a magical trading card site.

Haven’t we all wished we could attend Hogwarts, at least 200 times this week? Well some lucky children from an elementry school in Nottingham, England have gotten just that. In an effort to turn around a failing academic instituion the staff turned to themes to make learning fun. And Harry Potter was voted in, it has had great success with the school.

Robert Mellors, nestled among two-story brick homes in an ordinary residential neighborhood, has none of the grandeur and mystery of Hogwarts, let alone its cavernous dining hall. But here, as in the books from which it drew inspiration, the key to success has been the wondrous power of a child’s imagination. “By the nature of the beast, children are more creative than we are,” Chambers says. “So they will make the connections and do it enthusiastically.” The Robert Mellors School proves that when education is packaged to encourage those connections, it can cast a powerful spell — just like the Ollivander wand favored by Harry Potter.

Could this be the first step to Hogwarts themed schools everywhere? We can only hope.

Your Local Guardian is repoting that HBP filming has begun:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, starring Daniel Radcliffe as boy wizard Harry, will be on location overnight from Friday to Sunday.

Café Chaud on platforms one and two at the station is reportedly being used in the movie.

Seargeant Christopher MacKellaich, of the British Transport Police, said: “We will have officers down at the station on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night to assist with any public order issues associated with the filming.

Today Warner Bros. announced that “nine-year-old Hero Fiennes Tiffin is playing the role of the young Tom Riddle at age 11, while 16-year-old Frank Dillane is playing the teenage Riddle, who is already on the path to becoming the evil Lord Voldemort.”

WB also confirmed that casting for the HBP, is now complete.

Amazon made Deathly Hallows the Best Book of 2007. They say:

Was there any doubt? The final episode of the most popular series in publishing history, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, leads our list of the 100 topselling books on Amazon.com during 2007. (Ranked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2007 are eligible.)

The BBC has a new interview with Daniel Radcliffe where he discussed filming HBP and what he thought of Deathly Hallows. Here is what he thinks about how dark the 6th film will be:

I think it will. In some places it will be quite a lot lighter, which is hard in a way for me because my natural instincts and personality tend towards the darker side.

It’s also nice to let people see Harry’s sense of humour… but toward the end of the film it gets as dark as the fifth ever was.

Check out the interview for some interesting info on his Deathly Hallows experience and more.

MTV has published an aritcle on the new OoTP DVD with a special feature which you can see here. It has some of the fifth film’s deleted scenes, and two new interviews with Production Designer Stuart Craig and Director David Yates.

David Yates on Snapes Worst Memory:

Some of that was in the film, but it stopped short of showing Lily, who turned out to be the love of Snape’s life. “We had a lovely actress play Lily,” Yates said. “And we may bring her back. But by introducing Lily and the Lily/Snape plot, that back story, we complicated it too much. We had to cut it.”

We will keep you up to date with any more news!