"Harry Potter" director says finale to be best yet

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The sixth "Harry Potter" film opens on Wednesday and is likely to be another hit for the boy wizard series, but with filming started on the finale, director David Yates says "you haven't seen anything yet."

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," in which romance, magic and comedy collide as teenage hormones rage at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has received rave reviews and already sold out hundreds of theatres for its opening day.

Based on author J.K. Rowling's seven novels, which have sold more than 400 million copies, the film franchise has so far raked $4.5 billion (2.8 billion pound) worldwide for Warner Bros. studio, which is owned by Time Warner.

The series finale is being split into two movies for which filming began five months ago and is due to finish in about a year. Part one of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is due out in late 2010 and part two is planned for release in 2011.

"People are being very kind about what they're seeing in 'Half-Blood Prince' and I just think you haven't seen anything yet," Yates, who directed "Harry Potter" five and six and is helming the final two, said in a recent interview.

"(Part one) is like a road movie, refugees being chased by all these people who want to kill them. It's quite intense," he said. "Then the final film is like this big opera, big epic, it's got more set pieces than any of the others."

"It's fights and dragons and battles," he said. "It's a real rollercoaster, but with a really oddly uplifting end."

Website Rottentomatoes.com, which collates movies reviews, said 96 percent of critics liked "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Variety magazine said the movie is set to become "one of the year's two or three top-earning films."