Harry Potter: From Book to Movie The Flop that Wasn’t Not many people in the world today haven’t heard of Harry Potter, and few who have heard of it haven’t read one of the books or seen one of the movies. Harry Potter, originally a book series by British author J. K. Rowling, has been beloved by people worldwide, so much so that talk of a movie began only a few years after the release of the first book. In my experience, in most book-movie conversions, the movie makes the book popular. Harry Potter was the opposite. Book readers who loved the series dragged their sometimes unwilling family and friends to theaters in November 2001 to see the first movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Soon after, picture books, action figures, book marks, board games, a trading card game, hit shelves, along with the movie soundtrack, new prints of the books themselves, video games, and all sorts of other merchandise. The popularity of the series was overwhelming, and even now, with a second movie out and a third due for release in June, things have only calmed down a little bit in the face of 2003’s other popular fantasy book-to-movie, Lord of the Rings. Things don’t show any sign of stopping, but in this lull between the completion of the fifth book (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, summer 2003) and the release of the third movie, one begins to wonder just how Harry Potter got so popular. Harry Potter the series began with Harry Potter the character, who simply strolled into his creator’s mind one day. The first draft of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (in America Sorcerer’s Stone), was written by the poor, single parent J. K. Rowling on napkins down at a local café. In 1997 [Exploring Harry Potter, p. 24], the book was accepted for publication by Bloomsbury Press in Great Britain, after being turned down by three other publishers. Soon after Philosopher’s Stone (the story of Harry’s first year at the wizarding school, Hogwarts) came Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in 1998 [Exploring Harry Potter, p. 24]. Chamber of Secrets drew even more readers to the phenomenon, including yours truly, and Potter followers were not disappointed in the last Potter book of the millennium, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, published in 1999 [Exploring Harry Potter, p. 24]. The world waited apprehensively for a year as rumors of goings-on in the fourth book, which was yet to be completed, circulated. And then, as if an unexpected gift had been dropped in our laps by Hedwig, there was talk of a movie. Thousands of children rushed to audition for the part of their favorite character, and plenty more-myself included-wished they could make it all the way to England to try out. The release of the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, preceded the completion of the first movie, to be based on Philosopher’s Stone. Overshadowed by the near-epic book (over 700 pages long!), the movie was forgotten by some until its release in November 2001. Fans lined up worldwide to be the first on their blocks to see the newest cult classic. I was there, dressed up like many others, in commemoration of Harry’s (played by Daniel Radcliff), big-screen debut. Half the world, it seemed, sat in chilly movie theaters munching popcorn and drinking sodas while Harry struggled with the formidable, if disembodied, Lord Voldemort, entranced by the silver screen sorcery. But some were not as charmed as the rest of the crowd. Several weeks after the release, by which time most loyal Harry Potter fans had seen the travesty of one of the greatest books ever written, message boards and chat rooms devoted to the online Harry Potter community buzzed with heavy debates on just what had happened. It was, of course, true, and understandable, that much had been cut out in the conversion from movie to script because of time (it was as it stood nearly two and half hours long despite this effort). It was also true that some of the things writers and editors had chosen to leave in were completely useless and arbitrary, while they had removed important and necessary information and plot development. It was a well-known fact that Daniel Radcliffe, the boy who was supposed to personify our beloved hero, had had no previous experience with a large role, and had the talent, of, say, a board (I will note that he has improved greatly since the release of the second movie). But was it truly fair to call the movie awful when it had already sold so many tickets? The culprit of those ticket sales is a phenomenon known as Pottermania. Simply put, the series as a whole, but mainly in movie form (and related formats endorsed by Warner Brothers, who own the rights to the movie and related merchandise), had so much advertising exposure that there was no escaping it. Compare this to the advertising of McDonald’s on television. How many people see McDonald’s commercials and crave something to eat from the fast food restaurant? Harry Potter was much the same. It was no longer fueled by the intelligent, book-loving fans who had lifted it to movie status, but instead by the average television viewer or magazine reader, who saw the hundreds of Harry Potter-related advertisements everywhere and simply followed the subconscious drive to believe everything they saw and heard. Pottermania is a sham, brought on by Warner Brothers’ capitalization on every possible way to earn money out of a movie that doesn’t even begin to measure up to its basest beginnings as a book penned by a woman called the “Tolkien of the 21st Century”. Next time you reach for a Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone DVD or a booster pack of Harry Potter trading cards, do the world and yourself a favor; Put it down, and reach for the book instead.