:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63711713/curesd-child.0.jpg)
Tonight at midnight London time, the script for the new play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two” will go on sale.
At one minute after midnight expect a slew of tweets spilling all the secrets, which its creators have begged those who have attended the show in London to keep under wraps. So far that has worked well, with most of the audience (including reviewers) cooperating with that #KeeptheSecrets dictate.
Will that hold now that the text of “Cursed Child” will sell what is expected to be millions of copies? It’s already No. 1 on Amazon best-seller lists in the U.S. and Britain.
That’s despite the fact that the play was not written by J.K. Rowling, whose seventh book in the popular series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” summed up the adventures with a big bow in the last words, “all is well.”
She has since been working on other genres, some aimed at adults, but gave her blessing to the play and helped formulate the concept that centers on a grown-up Harry Potter, two decades after the final book ended with Voldemort vanquished.
But it was written by Jack Thorne and not Rowling. Still, the production has gotten hugely positive reviews so far and Rowling’s urging to tamp down the chatter on Twitter has been pretty much respected.
Whether that lasts as the flood of copies of the play gets out is anyone’s guess, but it will not be a surprise to see many put up sections of the work and discuss the ins and outs of it endlessly.
Potter, you see, is tailor-made for social media.
Meanwhile, Rowling is also prepping another new magical movie, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which debuts this fall and is getting big buzz online and off. It’s utterly in the “Potter” mode, with the same tingly music and gothic-esque font, except it brings the wizardry to Manhattan.
Here’s the trailer for “Fantastic Beasts” that recently debuted at Comic-Con:
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
