LOS ANGELES — Harry Potter pulled a disappearing act from Hollywood’s fall and holiday schedule, his sixth big-screen adventure bumped from this November into next summer.

That leaves a little more room to roam at the box office for the likes of James Bond, a vampire heartthrob, the “High School Musical” kids and all those talking cartoon critters studios are about to unleash.

The season offers action (Bond’s latest, “Quantum of Solace”), family flicks (the animated sequel “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”), fantasy romance (the best-seller adaptation “Twilight”), and serious stuff lining up for the Academy Awards, from Nicole Kidman’s epic “Australia” to Bond star Daniel Craig’s war saga “Defiance.”

Brad Pitt reunites with old pals George Clooney and Cate Blanchett in two films, Clint Eastwood does his own two-fer by directing Angelina Jolie in one drama and himself in another, and Oliver Stone takes on his latest president with a George W. Bush biopic.

Highlights of what Hollywood has in store:

THE WORLD AT WAR:

World War II is huge this season, with Cruise, Craig and director Spike Lee all offering dramas touching on little-known aspects of the conflict.

In director Bryan Singer’s “Valkyrie,” Cruise stars as German Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, who led a group of insiders in a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb.

Key scenes were shot at actual places in Germany where events occurred, including Bendlerblock, the place where the anti-Nazi conspirators were executed.

“It was eerie, but on the other hand, when looking at it from Stauffenberg’s viewpoint and what he did and what these men did, it was powerful,” Cruise said. “As an actor, I think I can say for all of us who were there that we felt fortunate to get those locations and shoot at those places. It really changes the performances to do it there at that spot.”

Craig stars with Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell in Edward Zwick’s “Defiance,” the story of Jewish brothers who escape the Nazis and set up a community of resistance fighters in Eastern Europe.

Spike Lee directs “Miracle at St. Anna,” starring Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso and Omar Benson Miller as members of the all-black “Buffalo Soldier” outfit fighting in Italy.

The film dramatizes the valor of troops whose heroism amid bigotry on the homefront is unknown to many Americans today, Lee said.

“These guys are true American patriots. They were fighting two wars,” Lee said. “They were fighting the Nazis, the fascists in Europe and fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, and they were fighting Jim Crow racism, prejudice in the United States of America at the same time.”

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