HARRY POTTER fans will have to wait until summer for the release of the next film in the series, but they were treated yesterday to a tantalising glimpse of what to expect.

Warner Brothers released a still from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix showing the boy wizard enjoying the magic of a first kiss with his first girlfriend.

Harry will be seen in a new light after his romantic encounter with Cho Chang, played by Katie Leung from Glasgow. The kiss required 24 takes, an insider said — “but we think that was just them having fun”.

Daniel Radcliffe, who is 17 and says that he is wary of girls who want to date him because of his fame, returns to the title role, alongside the Potter veterans Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

An A-list British cast also includes Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith and Julie Walters.

The film, which is due to open in the UK on July 13, includes a Potter newcomer, Helena Bonham Carter, who has changed out of the crinoline and corsets of her period roles and taken up a wand to play Bellatrix Lestrange, a follower of Harry’s nemesis Lord Voldemort. Other Potter debutantes include Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, and Evanna Lynch, 14, who plays Luna Lovegood.

Filming has just finished on the fifth adaptation of J. K. Rowling’s adventures. It is directed by the award-winning British film-maker David Yates from a screenplay by Michael Goldenberg.

There are two more films to go. Even two years ago, though, critics said that Radcliffe — described as the second-richest teenager in Britain after Prince Harry — was fast outgrowing the boy he played in The Prisoner of Azkaban. Doubts were raised about whether he would make the fifth Potter let alone the sixth and seventh, but the studio said again yesterday that the role would remain his.

The four Harry Potter films have so far taken more than £215 million at the UK box office alone — not to mention sales of DVDs, merchandising and overseas takings.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Donor organ allowed child’s own heart to heal
• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating