Reuters reports: Lord of the Rings movie maker Peter Jackson on Wednesday dismissed talk that the first movie of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilogy is in head-to-head competition with the first Harry Potter movie. Newspapers have cast the two fantasy movies as rivals in a battle of the box office but Jackson declared himself a …read more!

Sky News: The fifth Harry Potter novel of the seven-book series is nearly finished, according to author JK Rowling. Speaking at a charity screening of the first Potter film in Edinburgh, she said: “It’s still not finished but I am writing very hard, so it shouldn’t be long now.” A summary of what we know …read more!

NBC News will devote an hour of “Dateline” to covering the making of the Warner Bros. movie and related topics, Sunday at 7 pm EST. Katie Couric, who reports the special, visited the London set of “Harry Potter” over the summer. Parts of the program were taped over several months, and include interviews with the …read more!

Online.ie reveals that Richard Harris (Dumbledore in the movie) still hasn’t read JK Rowling’s books. Harris said he needed to do very little preparation for the role because the script was so good. “It’s possibly the easiest role in the entire film because it’s so well written. The only thing I did was to get …read more!

Coca Cola has a new contest, through AOL, where you can win tickets to a screening on November 15 in various cities.

The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, Harry Potter spoof starts at 8:30pm ET tonight.

Thanks to Rachel Bray of HP4GU, we have links to a set of articles on today’s IMDB Studio Brief page: Daniel Radcliffe’s pay hike from the original low-six figures for Chamber of Secrets, to a full 3 million dollars (of course, he’ll actually be paid in pounds. Or Galleons); Richard Harris’ criticisms of celebrities like …read more!

New articles in the press – with slightly different perspectives. Thanks to Alecks for the pointer to the London Times’ article, which notes that since September 11, in many ways, the “Harry Potter story sums up what we are fighting for, good and bad.” The article also discusses the loss of the books to commercialization …read more!

Wonderful reader Lia was nice enough to give us a play by play of that crazy new commercial, which she taped: Start Commercial The usual owls hooting as the WB sign turns into owls. Voiceover: In a world few of us have ever imagined. Scenes: First years sailing towards the Hogwarts castle at night. Draco …read more!

Sky News reports that Options in England have noticed a strange rise in the number of children wanting to have eye tests in the last few weeks.