The fight to maintain the global Harry Potter spell | Culture

Almost 28 years ago, Harry Potter received his invitation to Hogwarts wizarding school. But even today, after skipping a generation, there are many interests in ensuring that its spell does not wane. His books continue to fill bookstores with special editions, but in cinema Warner deals with the challenge of having to repeat the same story now in series. And at the center of everything is always its author, JK Rowling, the center of countless controversies for a speech accused of being transphobic. Whether in television, literature, films, video games or exhibitions, the objective is to maintain its global charm, even in the most atypical places.

In a studio on the outskirts of London that thousands of tourists visit every year, for example, cakes that must be based on the universe of the boy wizard are now baked in front of the cameras. Several cooks come out of the chimney with green smoke, there is a flying broom on a lectern and, captaining everything, a pair of red-haired twins. When they are ready, they will be served right on platform 9 and 3/4. This is how it debuts Harry Potter in television cooking competitions with The pastry wizardsWarner’s penultimate effort to continue exploiting this success without children forgetting it.

In times where intellectual property reigns, the magical world created in 1997 is a necessary brand for Warner, and, after its merger with Discovery (expert in reality shows and house or kitchen change programs), Harry Potter it also colonizes that content on the Max platform. The real great challenge for the Hollywood giant is, however, the project announced almost two years ago, in April 2023: a television series that will once again adapt the seven original books. At the moment, with filming scheduled for summer 2025 in Leavesden, they don’t even have a cast.

It is a titanic task. The plans are for seven seasons, although at the moment they only have scriptwriters. 32,000 children showed up to the casting, who will inevitably be compared with the originals. Not even Hollywood is assured that Warner will survive until 2026/2027, when it is released, and some actors such as Jared Harris, son of Dumbledore Richard Harris, have been critical of replicating the saga so soon: “The films were fantastic, leave them in peace,” he told The Independent. For Penguin Random House, which bought Salamandra in 2019, Harry Potter It continues to be one of the priority children’s brands, even if the last book was written 18 years ago, the publisher confirms to EL PAÍS.

Today, yes, they divide their editions between those for the discovering children and those for the nostalgic. This year they have published four cases in the summer (with the colors of each Hogwarts house) with all the books for €100, and also The Book of Spells and Potions official of the saga accompanied by a magic wand. “It is still the best-selling brand in Spain between six and 12 years old,” says Laia Zamarrón, editorial director at Penguin Random House. “In everything for children and young people, Rowling continues to be the best-selling author, and we are also growing. During the pandemic there was a peak, then it went down and now we are back to 2020 numbers. It is quite exceptional. It grows between six and 20% a year,” he says.

A few years ago, the publisher gave the only official sales figures: since the launch, more than 10 million books have been sold in Spain, although Zamarrón predicts that there are many more. In Madrid, meanwhile, 100,000 visitors have come to the exhibition dedicated to the cinematographic universe. Among them there are girls dressed in costumes and many groups of adults, taking a walk through an interactive experience that does not give much more than the opportunity to take photos with iconic scenes from the film, and then upload them to networks.

“The reader’s interest is twofold: there are the veterans who buy the Minalima editions (with engineering reliefs, illustrations and for about €40), which sell out in two months, or illustrated editions by Jim Kai. They want to continue belonging and they don’t care about the price, it’s collecting. Then there are the new kids. They are our focus. For them we have launched editions illustrated by Xavier Bonet, with larger print, the most purchased in bookstores,” explains Zamarrón. The nostalgic man is also a father: “There are very young children, five years old, who are interested without having seen the movies, because they are pushed by reading with them. We also have books for those who cannot read, to color or with games, so that they know who Hogwarts or Hermione is from a young age,” he observes.

The factory first took advantage of the push of the movies, always Max’s most watched, and now the video game Hogwarts Legacywhich with 30 million copies was among the best sellers of 2023 and is preparing a sequel. Video games and theme parks (another one opens in Florida in May) are a priority, and everything helps the paper, because literary novelties take advantage of each new phase. The winning recipe from the cooking contest will appear in the next culinary book, a classic from this brand that designed special editions before they were fashionable.

“The big change is where the reader arrives. I have talked to girls who, at the age of four, knew what it was, because of Lego. Some don’t even read the books,” recalls Sigrid Kraus, the editor who discovered the saga in Spain and who still collaborates at Penguin Random House: “I think it’s like The little princewhich continues to sell every year. Young people continue to read it a lot. He will be one of those left, like The fiveeven if there are ups and downs. Today many of the successes of young adults are much simpler, such as Blackwaterin syntax, vocabulary… That worries me. Harry Potter “It wasn’t that easy.”

Cinema, due to its cost, has had a harder time escaping from the mother story. The prequel fantastic beastsscripted by JK Rowling, started with good box office, but this was reduced by half in its third installment, barely making a profit. Warner could not maintain its five-film plan, and decided to go back to base with the series of the same story.

While other heir sagas such as the hunger games yes they have managed to escape from their protagonist, Harry Potter It is difficult for him to live outside the seven canonical books of the boy wizard. Its icons are so powerful that the first preview of the series was made with the same typography and music by John Williams as the original.

The elephant in the room: the antitrans discourse

At the moment, it also seems difficult to adapt the theatrical sequel Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (which recently reduced to a single night in London), since the actor Daniel Radcliffe has preferred to maintain experimental paths and has positioned himself with “sadness” against Rowling and her constant attacks on the rights of the trans community: “Nothing would have happened without her, but that doesn’t mean that all your beliefs should be at the mercy of another person for your entire life,” he responded to The Atlantic. The author described the actor and Emma Watson as “celebrities who ally themselves with a movement that seeks to erode the hard-won rights of women and who use their fame to encourage the transition of minors,” in one of her speeches on Twitter. The main cast is actively a defender of trans rights to move away from that discourse.

This very public culture war has also alienated some of its most active followers: “I started the saga when I was 15, and when I had the internet, I discovered its community and fanfictions written by followers. Many of us were LGTBIQ+, and what we wrote and read included this vision. It was a safe place. It allowed many trans people to interact as teenagers,” recalls Irene, 38, who has stopped consuming products from the saga, despite having many friends from that time: “Rowling’s creative side, her biases, was always criticized. but still with respect for creating the world that allowed us to build that refuge and our own derived stories. The problem appeared when it began to attack those of us who had lived there, friends that I met in forums with an HP logo. The red line was when lukewarm statements became explicitly transphobic and it was known that he financed anti-trans groups. Do I still have affection? I have it back to the time that allowed me to live, the friends I made, the learnings from discussing it, the fanfics… I wish they had not ruined one of the works that marked my life.”

This forum user explains that perhaps the average reader does not notice it as much, but that among those who were more active followers, who made a “big expense”, there is a sector opposed to these ideas. Some of the fanfics Today they include notices that they are a safe zone for trans readers. Her friend Isabel complements her vision: “It was a meeting point for people who had suffered bullying or discrimination. The saga said that you could be happy in a hostile world. In it fandom We made lifelong friendships in a time when being called a geek was an insult. We have seen Rowling’s drift as a betrayal of what we find in her universe, which claimed to be a rejection of supremacist ideas and discrimination against those who are different. To many the dissonance between the author’s work and thought will seem obvious, but for others it has been a difficult pill to swallow.”

Warner, for its part, after not inviting her to celebrate the meeting with the actors on the 20th anniversary of the films, has defended the writer and their future together: “She has the right to defend her vision. The next series will only benefit from being involved,” they said in a statement in response to the criticism. They are studying, however, using a multiracial cast, unlike in the books.

Kraus, with a long personal relationship with the author, also thinks about the position: “As her editor, thinking about sales, I would have preferred that she maintain a lower profile to preserve the brand. But she maintains that if she can’t speak her mind, who can? I can understand that. “She has paid a very high price, and that is wrong.”