Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

[tammy]

This is the first movie where Bonnie Wright was given prominent billing, despite appearing in every film in the franchise.

[harry]

J.K. Rowling read through the script, and found a line where Dumbledore mentions a girl he had a crush on when he was younger. After reading it, she informed the filmmakers that Dumbledore is in fact gay, and that his only romantic infatuation was with the wizard Grindelwald, whom he later had to defeat in a wizard duel. She later made this information public while promoting the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

[toni]

Regulus Black (Tom Moorcroft), Lily Evans (Susie Shinner), and Lucius Malfoy (Tony Coburn) all were supposed to be amongst Horace Slughorn's previous favorite students. They were amongst those in Slughorn's photographs. Yet another photograph shown to Harry was that of "Daily Prophet" Editor Barnabas Cuffe (Roger C. Bailey). Unfortunately, long shots or only the backs of the frames were shown. This resulted in deleted scenes for all of the actors.

[jesse]

Production designer Stuart Craig revealed that the Three Broomsticks' design was constructed for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park first. Subsequently, the film crew constructed an exact replica during filming.

[nicholas]

Ron has no lines in the final scene, and sat a little apart from Harry and Hermione, foreshadowing how he'll temporarily walk out on them in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010).

[jesus]

Horace Slughorn's (Jim Broadbent's) outfits were designed to look very rich and elegant, but also old and threadbare. The costumes were distressed to make them appear worn, and in addition, were washed in a powdery solution to make them appear as if they had gathered dust during the years of Slughorn's retirement.

[darrell]

Robert Knox (Marcus Belby) was tragically stabbed to death on May 24, 2008, just a few days after filming wrapped.

[nicholas]

Originally to be released on November 21, 2008, the studio decided to postpone it to July 15, 2009. Officially, the decision, according to studio chief Alan Horn was largely due to the writers' strike at that time, but unofficially, and known to most, the decision was following the massive earnings made by another studio movie, The Dark Knight (2008) that released on that week of July. With that, Twilight (2008), which was supposedly to be released on December 12, 2008, moved to fill in that vacant release slot.

[caroline]

The omission in this movie of the battle at Hogwarts between members of the Order of the Phoenix and Death Eaters was due to the fact that the writers did not want to seek repetition when they filmed the climactic battle of the final movie.

[bernard]

Shipped to some theaters under the moniker "Candlelit".

[gabriel]

Director David Yates and producer David Heyman have noted that some of the events of the novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", influenced the script.

[phyllis]

The only Harry Potter movie to be Oscar nominated for the Best Cinematography Academy Award.

[linda]

This is the first movie since Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone (2001) to feature a full game of Quidditch. However, the Quidditch World Cup was featured in the opening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) before being completely absent in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007).

[veronica]

Anand Tucker and Michael Hoffman were rumored as possible directors.

[claude]

The Pensieve in this movie is different from the version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). The pensive can somehow float in midair, presumably by a Charms spell, and Harry is not seen in the pensive this time, but it can be argued the memories are seen by Harry via first person. Harry, unlike the book version of this movie, sees the first two memories without Dumbledore, but it is implied the pair saw Slughorn's true memory together.

[veronica]

Steve Kloves' script originally used all six flashbacks of Voldemort that are described in the book. In the movie, only two were used that had direct relevance to the plot. Had all of the remaining flashbacks remained, they would have provided more exposition and backstory, such as how Merope Gaunt (Tom Riddle's mother) met Tom Riddle, Sr. (his father) in the 1920s, and seduced him with love potion; how young Voldemort tracked down his maternal uncle Morfin Gaunt in Little Hangleton in 1943, stole his black family ring and murdered the Riddle family; the origins of Hufflepuff's Cup being a horcrux, which pays off in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011); and finally, explaining why the Defense Against the Dark Arts job is jinxed, with each teacher lasting no more than one year since 1956, when Dumbledore turned down Tom Riddle's request to teach in that position.

[carl]

(At around thirty seconds) Robert Hardy (Cornelius Fudge) has an uncredited voice-over at the start of the movie: Immediately after Helena Bonham Carter's (Bellatrix Lestrange's) line, "I killed Sirius Black!" (from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)), Hardy/Fudge's last line from the same movie: "He's back!" can be heard.

[jim]

Daniel Radcliffe's least favorite own performance in the franchise, stating in an interview in 2014 that he was "just not very good in it", and calling it "hard to watch". He also revealed that he was struggling with alcohol at the time of filming and can tell in certain scenes that he was intoxicated.

[mathew]

(At around two hours) When Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) has to force Dumbledore (Sir Michael Gambon) to drink the cursed water in the cave, Dumbledore can be heard saying "It's my fault! It's all my fault!" It is revealed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) that Dumbledore's sister died from a stray curse while he and his brother and best friend were duelling; a psychological trauma, for which he has always blamed himself.