Harry & Ron during the Yule Ball
Harry & Ron during the Yule Ball

DALLAS, Nov 28, 2005/ FW/ — For Harry Potter fans, the fourth installment in the 7-part movie series, ‘Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire’ shows their favorite wizards and witches at Hogwarts reaching teen status complete with the ‘boy-girl’ problems that occur during puberty.

They might be magical, but they are so ‘muggle-like’ as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger delve in the non-magical world of love.

The trio’s fourth year at Hogwarts brings to them the Triwizard Tournament, wherein other schools of magic around the world are introduced, including a new cast of characters never been mentioned before.

Hermione Grainger and Victor Krum
Hermione Grainger and Victor Krum

Between their schoolwork and the tournament, Harry, Ron and Hermione discover puppy love and attend a Yule Ball wherein they have to dress up and find partners!

Now, at 14 how do you invite a girl to the most important party in school? Harry and Ron had a hard time asking the girls they like to attend the ball with, while Hermione gets ask by the most popular boy in school!

For muggles, it’s the equivalent for Prom Night or Homecoming Ball, yet the ‘challenges’ that these three characters face are the same ones that their non-magical counterparts experience.

And so it came to pass that all three attend the Yule Ball – the boys wear their dress robes and tuxedo bow ties; while the girls wear gowns, without dress robes covering them!

Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire

Hermione in her pink long gown with spaghetti straps look as lovely as a pink rose in springtime. The other girls also made their fashion statements and the adults (as in the teachers) took off their academic robes and replaced them with ball gowns.

It was a real party, complete with a live band. And, it could be a scene from any muggle school during Prom night. The audience loved this parallelism between the wizard and muggle world, as proven at the box office.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire brought in $81.3 million during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with $54.9 million tickets sold from Friday to Sunday. This brings the phenomenal 10-day US opening total for the film to $201.1

It has reached that mark in the fourth-fastest time on record. Adding in totals outside of the US brings the total to date for “Goblet” to a staggering $408.1 million.

Granted that the movie is pre-sold to the millions of fans around the world. With Book 6 out (Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince) and the Goblet of Fire the fourth book in the series, devotees just cannot get enough of Harry Potter.

And with the introduction of French and Easter European wizards, together with Cho Chang, a witch of Asian descent as Harry’s love interest in the movie, (and of course in the book), J K Rowling and the producers of the movie just included the whole world as a magical world wherein wizards and witches live among muggles, unseen of course!

Among the four movies already made, Goblet of Fire is so far the best and the most interesting. For those who had read up to Book 6, the fourth installment is just the beginning of the new adventures of Harry Potter!

So, while the movie executives are planning on the shooting of the fifth Harry Potter movie, ‘Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix,’ those who read ‘Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince’ are eagerly awaiting for the release of the seventh and last installment.

Now, how much bigger can Harry Potter mania get? Let us just say that sky is the limit!
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Widescreen Edition) (Harry Potter 4)

[MARI DAVIS]
Photos courtesy of Warner Bros