Morocco Has the ‘Prince of Persia: Sands of Time’

Director Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) will lead the action-adventure pic Prince of Persia: Sands of Time in Morocco for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney. The epic project is a live-action feature based on the videogame. “Prince of Persia” has a script by Jeffrey Nachmanoff (The Day After Tomorrow) and game creator Jordan Mechner. The videogame spawned six installments and numerous spin-offs, boosting Disney executives’ hopes for a lucrative new tentpole.The choice of Morocco as a shooting location will be a boost for the North African country’s film biz.

“Prince of Persia” will also film in UK’s Pinewood Shepperton studios. The Moroccan section of the shoot is expected to start in mid-June.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time will hit theaters July 10, 2009.

Final “Potter” Split In Half?

When the “Harry Potter” film franchise began, the fourth story – “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” – was such a fat book that many thought it would have to be turned into two films.

It was a rumor that lasted for years but eventually turned out to be false, instead the fourth film remained one movie as expected – albeit cutting out a lot of the book’s padding.

Now the same talk has sprung up again, this time for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the seventh and final novel in the series.

The Daily Mail reports that crews currently working on the sixth film “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” have been told the final Potter film “will be released in two halves.”

An unnamed source says “There’s so much to fit that the view is the last movie should be in two halves. There is a huge battle when Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe, takes on Voldemort that needs to be done really well.”