The Wall Street Journal reported [subscription required] this morning that Time Warner (NYSE: TWX)'s Warner Bros. Pictures plans to film the adaptation of the seventh "Harry Potter" book in two parts. The first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released during the holiday season of 2010 and the second part will follow six months later. A similar proposal was made for the filming of the fourth book, before enough material was cut from the book to facilitate a single film. Warner Bros. Pictures said that filming the book in two parts was "necessary to stay true to the tome."

The five "Harry Potter" films released thus far have grossed $4.5 billion according to the Journal, and expectations are high that the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, will repeat that success when it is released later this year. Current director David Yates will stay on board for the final two installments, after directing the fifth film and the upcoming sixth film. In addition to "staying true to the tome," WB President Jeff Robinov admitted that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is 'packed with vital plot points' and that 'the best way to do the book, and its many fans, justice is to expand the screen adaptation.'"

Clearly, part of the scheme of adding an eighth film to the series is to continue the success the films have seen, as well as the record-breaking sales that the book's have enjoyed as well. Fans will likely welcome the decision, although not the time lag between the films, and question why similar methods were not taken for the longer fourth and fifth books. At the same time, they may also question the economics of it but the films will likely still do quite well and bring in further revenue that Warner Bros. looks toward.

For those of you who want to take part in the Harry Potter (Scholastic Press, NYSE: SCHL) water cooler chatter but don't have the time to plow through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we have prepared this summary:

The last novel of the series covers the culmination of Harry's war with the evil Lord Voldemort. The story begins with the servants of Voldemort overwhelming the forces of good magic, taking over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts, where longtime evil ally Snape is placed in charge.

Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione are forced to go on the run to hide from Voldemort, whose single greatest ambition is to kill Harry, the only person who can destroy him.

Spoiler alert – if you have not yet read the conclusion to the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, you may want to skip this post, in which the ending is discussed.

For companies such as publisher Scholastic Corp. (NASDAQ:SCHL), the US publisher of the books, Time Warner (NYSE:TWX), whose Warner Brothers Studios produces the hugely profitable Harry Potter movies, and General Electric's (NYSE:GE) Universal Studios, which will open a Harry Potter theme park in 2009, the seventh and final Harry Potter book must have come as a great relief.

Despite rumors to the contrary, the title character did not die, and thereby cast a pall on the series and its offshoots. Rather, as I expected, Harry prevailed, and in general the core cast lived happily ever after. Even Snape, as I predicted, achieved redemption, but at a mortal cost.

In the coda to the novel, Harry Potter and his wife, the former Ginny Weasley, watch their children depart for Hogwarts. Also placing their children on the Hogworts train are Harry's best friends, the married couple Ron Weasley and Hermoine Granger.

This final scene, nineteen years after the climax of the book, will no doubt inspire a great deal of conversation, as it keeps open a couple of possibilities for future novels in the Potter universe. Harry is still young enough to have more adventures, perhaps as he takes on the role of the era's greatest wizard, much as Albus Dumbledore was in Potter's youth. Rowling could also, should she decide to continue the series, reboot the series with the next generation of Hogwarts students.

I don't expect her to return to the Potter storyline for a long time, if ever, but the lure will always be there; a huge, thirsty audience ready to demonstrate their devotion with their pocketbooks.

More Harry Potter news

Tom Barlow: The Harry Potter Finance Quiz
Gary E. Sattler: New York Times bestseller list leaves Harry Potter out
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter ending: A water cooler cheat sheet
Zac Bissonnette: With Harry Potter done, is it time for Scholastic to sell itself?
Zac Bissonnette: Is the last book the end of Potter mania?
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Pots of Gold
Barry Summerlin: Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing
Julie Tilsner: Not even Harry can save bookstores from their fate
Peter Cohan: Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Will Rowling kill off Harry?

Even with magic as strong as Harry Potter's, Publisher's Weekly reported today that bookstore sales continued to fall for the fifth consecutive month. According to the U.S. Census bureau, sales in May were down 4.3%, to $1.10 billion.

However, bookstore sales totaled $6.20 billion in the period between January and May. The retail segment in total saw sales up 5.6% in May, and were ahead 4.1% for the first five months of 2007.

How does that jibe with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the latest (and last) Potter tome selling an unprecedented nine million copies in the U.S. and Britain in its first 24 hours of release? Well it's all good, everyone agrees, compelling millions of kids to lay aside their Nintendo for the week and venture into bookstores. But as Sara Nelson, editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly recently wrote, there are still some problems in the numbers.

"Take, for example, the retailers, big and small. The former have made the dubious choice to discount HPATDH so drastically that even they admit their revenue – on the most popular book in history! – will be down this year. The latter can't begin to compete with the economies of scale and some may bypass their distributors and buy direct – at nearly the same discount – from Amazon or Costco."

A piece on Bloomberg offers a similarly dark assessment, suggesting that Big-box retailers like Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) and Sam's Club (A division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) discount the book so deeply as to use it as more a customer draw then a revenue-booster. In the meantime, independent bookstores that can't afford to discount this most popular literary offering in history must resort to any tactic they can to draw customers in, including hosting Potter parties, and other community-building schemes.

I have another idea for keeping small booksellers and their particular brand of magic alive. Maybe every wealthy best-selling author (and Oprah, who's responsible for creating a few) could each sponsor an independent bookstore. Surely it's not too much to ask from someone who probably spent the better part of their youths perusing the musty stacks. Besides, what's J.K. Rowling got to do these days?

More Harry Potter news

Tom Barlow: The Harry Potter Finance Quiz
Gary E. Sattler: New York Times bestseller list leaves Harry Potter out
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter ending: A water cooler cheat sheet
Zac Bissonnette: With Harry Potter done, is it time for Scholastic to sell itself?
Tom Barlow: Rowling safeguards Potter empire
Zac Bissonnette: Is the last book the end of Potter mania?
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Pots of Gold
Barry Summerlin: Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing
Peter Cohan: Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Will Rowling kill off Harry?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling is scheduled to be published by Scholastic Press (NASDAQ: SCHL) on July 21, and some fans are speculating that Harry will die. I am quite confident in telling you that he won't, for several reasons.

1. The artistic.
Experienced authors will tell you that a satisfying ending is one that, after it happens, readers will see as inevitable, even if they didn't see it coming. For example, the ending of Sixth Sense, while a shocker to many (including me), worked because it neatly tied up loose threads we'd momentarily lost sight of. The ending completed the Bruce Willis' character arc.

Rowling has not established the need for someone to sacrifice his life so that Voldemort might die. In fact, she has already given Harry's parents and Dumbledore to the cause. Harry's death would be gratuitous, and, most importantly, inconsistent with the rest of the saga. Harry is the viewpoint character, and it is our vicarious enjoyment of his overcoming obstacles that gives the series such impact. It's hard to enjoy the denouement of a dead character.

Most importantly, though, Harry is not a flawed character seeking redemption through sacrifice. He is an innocent predestined to conquer the wicked AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

2. The practical.
If Rowling were to kill off her hero in the final book, it would not only diminish sales of this volume, but horribly impact the future sales of the series. Knowing that Harry was to die, (and who on Earth would not know of this plot twist?), would change the reader's experience, robbing each bit of conflict of its gravitas. Plus, fans would revolt. Arthur Conan Doyle learned this lesson when he tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes -- some plot reversals fans will simply not accept.

3. The financial.
With two more films on the planning board (including Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, due for release July 11th by Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner, NYSE:TWX) and a theme park in development, I can't believe these companies would invest so much in a closed-end storyline. And while Rowling may have all the money she needs, keeping the tale open-ended is a much shrewder business decision.

So I'm not worried about Harry. My prediction -- he'll defeat Voldemort with Snape's help, assume Dumbledore's position as head of Hogworts, marry Jenny Ginny and stand as best man at Ron and Hermione's wedding.

Harry Potter can't die. Trust me.

More Harry Potter news

Tom Barlow: The Harry Potter Finance Quiz
Gary E. Sattler: New York Times bestseller list leaves Harry Potter out
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter ending: A water cooler cheat sheet
Zac Bissonnette: With Harry Potter done, is it time for Scholastic to sell itself?
Tom Barlow: Rowling safeguards Potter empire
Zac Bissonnette: Is the last book the end of Potter mania?
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Pots of Gold
Barry Summerlin: Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing
Julie Tilsner: Not even Harry can save bookstores from their fate
Peter Cohan: Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold

Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) Warner Brothers and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Universal Studios have pulled off the magic trick of the decade by gaining the rights to create a theme park based on J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter book series. "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" will be created in Universal's "Islands of Adventure" theme park at the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. Completion is expected in 2009.

The announcement is timed to take advantage of this summer's Pottermania. The seventh and final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is scheduled for release July 21. The next Harry Potter film, the Warner Brothers feature Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, opens July 11.

The park will offer rides and interactive attractions, as well as shopping and restaurants based on the novels. Expect Universal to put huge money into this development to make it a world-class experience.

WB and Universal are betting that, even though no new HP books will be forthcoming, the product will remain popular. With the continuation of the profitable film series keeping Harry in the public eye, I'll bet demand for the park will still be strong in 2009.