‘Harry Potter’ Franchise Will Be Hard To Replicate
With the release of the final Harry Potter movie, fans have little to look forward to. There’s always JK Rowling’s recently unveiled Pottermore website, and the release of the series in ebook format. But even those can take fans so far.
Let’s not forget that Harry Potter has been a multi-billion dollar franchise. It has kept kids and adults hitting the bookstores and the movie theaters.
For JK Rowling, she’ll keep raking in the cash. And with the release of the HP ebooks that she’s self-publishing, her net-worth is going to skyrocket.
The real question, however, is what comes next? Will there be another Harry Potter? I’m thinking in terms of the financial success of the franchise, not the cast of characters, plot or anything like that.
One article on TheStreet.com says we probably won’t see something like Harry Potter for a long time:
Elisabeth Gruner, associate professor of English at the University of Richmond, who teaches the Harry Potter series in her classes, agrees it became a worldwide, multimedia phenomenon based on a convergence of factors that are hard to replicate.
“The confluence of the growth of social media, the tie-ins with the movies and even the post-9/11 concern with fighting ultimate evil are all unique to that particular series and its times,” Gruner says. “I don’t really think there will be another Harry Potter in the way that we know it.”
In other words, it took a mix of the right story at the right time to the right audience. Timing has a lot to do with literary success. Genres and subject matter fade in and out of style. What’s popular today will be gone tomorrow.
The next series to reach the mega success Harry Potter has seen will, more than likely, not be in the same genre. As the article suggests, there is a strong attempt to “recreate the magic” of HP:
That doesn’t mean publishing houses and studios won’t try to recreate the magic. In fact, they already have with popular young adult book series such as Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson, Pitticus Lore’s I am Number Four and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events all failing to turn into a successful film franchise.
What I find very amazing is the rag-to-riches story of JK Rowling herself. She was a struggling unknown before she was published. In fact, the first Harry Potter book was rejected by 12 publishers (I bet they’re really kicking themselves now!).
When we do discover the next Harry Potter, I bet it will go straight to ebook this time.
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