Final ‘Harry Potter’ Novel Will Spawn Two Movies

It’s official: Eight will be the magic number for the "Harry Potter" film franchise.

After months of rumors, Warner Bros. and the producers of the massively successful movies will announce today that they plan to split "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," J.K. Rowling’s seventh and final "Potter" novel, into two films – one to be released in November 2010 and the second in May 2011.

The films will be titled, simply, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II," according to producer David Heyman. Director David Yates, who returned for his second tour of Potter duty with "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and is quite popular with the cast, will direct both "Deathly Hallows" films, which will be filmed concurrently. Screenwriter Steve Kloves also returns and, by completion of the franchise, will have written seven of the eight films.

One devoted "Potter" reader that is especially happy to hear the news is Daniel Radcliffe, the 18-year-old actor who plays the title character in the wizardry epic.

Some cynics will see the move as simply doubling the box-office payday, but Radcliffe told the Los Angeles Times that the split is purely in service of the story.

"I think it’s the only way you can do it without cutting out a huge portion of the book," Radcliffe said recently on the set of "Half-Blood Prince," the sixth "Potter" film, which is due in theaters Nov. 21. "There have been compartmentalized subplots in the other books that have made them easier to cut – although those cuts were still to the horror of some fans – but the seventh book doesn’t really have any subplots. It’s one driving, pounding story from the word go."

Producer David Heyman said the decision was made with some anxiety and only after considerable deliberations.

Heyman said he approached Rowling with some trepidation about the strategy but found that she signed off on its logic rather quickly. "I went to Jo and she was cool with it," Heyman said, "and that was quite a relief."