Director Casting New Harry Potter For 'Troll'

Film director John Carl Buechler cast former "Battlestar Galactica" actor Noah Hathaway to play a character named Harry Potter Jr. in his movie "Troll" -- produced more than a decade before J.K. Rowling published her first book on the boy wizard -- and is planning to use that character once again when he remakes the movie set for a 2009 release.

"Harry Potter Jr. is based on the character first introduced to the world in 1986 in the original motion picture," Buechler told SyFy Portal's Michael Hinman. That means that he won't try to be anything like Rowling's character, but instead will be taking his cues from the Hathaway character.

"Harry Potter Jr. is very like the character in the original," he said.

"Troll" spawned two sequels in the 1980s and 1990s, but hadn't been touched again until recently. The remake is budgeted for $20 million, according to a weekend story in The Daily Mail in London, and like the original, does feature Potter in an wizard-like environment.

Casting has already begun on the film, with Buechler taking his search for a new Harry Potter Jr. to the Internet. He has set up a Web site at troll.sharenow.com where he hopes to find a boy and a girl between the ages of 11 and 14 to portray both Harry and his sister, Wendy Anne.

Buechler is already marketing the film on the Web site as how, in 1986, he "brought to the screen the magical tale of a young boy who entered a fantastical world of bizarre creatures, wizards and witches where he fought an evil magician, who was horribly transformed into a grotesque wizard troll. The magical creature took over the form of the boy's sister, and attempted to transform the world into a nightmarish land. Learning the ways of magic from a guardian witch, the young boy was charged to try and save the world."

The original story reported by The Daily Mail quoted Buechler's production partner, Peter Davy, as if to challenge Warner Bros. and Rowling in her creation. However, Buechler told SyFy Portal that Davy was misquoted by the paper. The movie's Web site already has taken steps to distance itself from Rowling and Warner Bros., but despite a warning from the studio, Buechler has no plans to change the name of his character, since it's the same name used in the original movie.

Olswang Solicitors of London, a firm that says they represent author J.K. Rowling, contacted SyFy Portal Tuesday demanding the removal of an earlier story based on The Daily Mail publication, which they said they had successfully removed. They called the story "inaccurate and defamatory," and threatened legal action against SyFy Portal if the story was not removed by Wednesday.

Since SyFy Portal does not remove stories simply from a generic demand from an attorney, the site instead went out and worked to independently verify information in the story, and reached out to Buechler, who in turn provided an update on the project. The original SyFy Portal story was removed because of the misquotes, and because Buechler said the story's writer from The Daily Mail jumped to conclusions that were not accurate.

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