Warner Bros Studios in Leavesden, England
Famous franchises don’t die, you know. They just evolve.
Before you think that opening line resembles some sort of meta tagline, fear not. It’s just the only way NewsFeed knows how to contain our excitement ahead of next year’s opening in England of the Harry Potter Studio Tour.
Here’s what you Muggles need to know: Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden, which is just outside London, was where the eight films were made during the previous decade. And it seemed eminently sensible to utilize its 150,000 square feet to create a permanent shrine to all things Potter.
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Highlights on a tour expected to take around three hours to complete will include Hogwarts’ Great Hall, Dumbledore’s office, the Gryffindor common room and Hagrid’s hut. You’ll also get to sneak a peek at the series’ animatronics (the likes of Buckbeak the Hippogriff, Aragog the giant spider, Fawkes the phoenix and the Basilisk head) in the Creature Effects workshop.
The stars are unsurprisingly effusive in their early praise. Harry himself, Daniel Radcliffe, said of the studios, “It was such a magical place to grow up. People will be amazed to see the incredible environment we’ve worked in all these years.” Meanwhile, his buddy Rupert Grint, who played best friend Ron Weasley, noted that, “The sets all have tiny little details that you may not always notice in the films but when you actually walk through them, you can see all the work that’s gone into it. It’s really amazing.”
Also amazing: the prices. When tickets go on sale on October 13, they will set adults back £28 ($46) and children £21 ($34). They must be purchased in advance from either the studio tour’s website or approved tour operators.
And if you can keep a secret, then NewsFeed can reveal that it was lucky enough to spend the day at the studios last year (Warner Bros is the parent company of TIME) and was shown much of what will be on display. We left with our heads spinning — and not from a magic spell. (via AOL)
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Glen Levy is an Executive Producer at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @glenjl. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.