Cinema: The First Look At Harry

Today at Leavesden Studios, in a vast, drafty airplane hangar converted into makeshift soundstages, Diagon Alley is deserted. Hogwarts' magnificent staircase (partly constructed, then digitally finished onscreen) stands empty. But the lights will go on soon, as the sets will be recycled for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which is scheduled for release next year, with Columbus back at the helm. The entire Sorcerer's Stone cast will return for Chamber of Secrets, and just last week it was announced that Kenneth Branagh will join them in the role of the vain new defense against the dark-arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart. Meanwhile, Kloves has begun adapting the third Potter book. The three young leads haven't yet signed on for any movies past the second, but because the Potter novels chronicle consecutive school terms at Hogwarts, the child actors could conceivably continue through what Rowling says will be seven books, aging right along with the franchise. "That would be cool," says the red-haired Grint, though he admits, "I don't know what I'll look like in a couple of years."

He's not the only one worried about how the actors will age. "If they suddenly discover cheeseburgers on movie three," says Columbus, "I don't know what I'm gonna do." Other concerns will arise as the movies progress. The PG-rated Sorcerer's Stone is designed for kids ages six and older, but Rowling's books do get scarier. They also get longer. Columbus has already come up with a strategy for the very thick Goblet of Fire, which could hit screens in 2004. "I think it has to be two movies," he says. "We could shoot a four- or five-hour version, release part one at Thanksgiving and part two at Christmas." Otherwise, Columbus is keeping mum on his Potter plans, and a veil of secrecy is descending on the second movie. On Columbus' office wall at Leavesden, he has tacked up renderings and scene sketches from Chamber of Secrets. He kindly asks the visiting journalist to ignore them. Too late. It's a car--a drawing of the magically souped-up Ford Anglia that carries Harry and Ron to their second year at Hogwarts. It's turquoise, just as Rowling described it, and already in flight.