It’s common knowledge that the Harry Potter franchise celebrated its climax by splitting the Deathly Hallows into two parts, but
it’s easy to forget just how much of a cultural impact the franchise had made
on society. At the time of the first cinematic adaptation, the book series was
already four entries in and had taken the literary world by storm – so much so
that every studio in Hollywood was vying for the rights to turn them into
films. The films only proved how popular they were, and on a near-yearly basis we were treated to the next thrilling instalment. Just look at its global box
office: only one entry made less than $800m, and that one (Prisoner of Azkaban, which is now seen as the series’ best) was a
mere $4m off. Naturally, Warner Brothers would want to capitalise on its
worldwide success and cultural significance and announced that they would split
the final book into two films in order to do the source material justice. The
box office receipts only proved that, financially, it was the right move to do,
with Part Two being the first in the series to pass a billion dollars at the
global box office (back then a much rarer occurrence). But other studios saw
the financial gain and decided to copy Harry
Potter to much less success.
This tactic was most commonly used for adaptations of young
adult book series, with Twilight opting
to do the same thing with Breaking Dawn before
Deathly Hallows hit cinemas. Twilight made some sense – for all the
online disdain for the series it was a constant aspect of popular culture – but
Part One was received more negatively than any previous entry, and outside of
inspiring the equally despised Fifty
Shades of Grey series have become largely forgotten. At least with Harry Potter it had a decade’s worth of
movies whose longevity have allowed for continuous fan support (not least
mentioning the Fantastic Beasts prequel
series, but more on that later); Twilight
doesn’t have that same fan-creator comradery. Breaking Dawn’s financial success cemented the idea that splitting films
into multiple parts lead to bigger profits, but perhaps it also proved that
some films shouldn’t do such a thing.
There would be two more YA franchises biting the bullet on
the gimmick, but both had less success than both Harry Potter and Twilight.
The Hunger Games was the more
surprising failure, with Catching Fire Part
Two grossing less than any other entry of the series (including Part One)
and, despite the massive star power of Jennifer
Lawrence and the massive success the first entries proved to be, the series
may have jumped the gun in exploiting said success. That’s not to say the films
were box office bombs – in actuality they were highly profitable – but the near
$100m drop between instalments was alarming, and just like Twilight before it has become largely forgotten despite only
concluding less than four years ago. But Divergent
was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The splitting of its final book
was announced shortly after the release of the first film, but that film was
only a mild success; making good money for a small budget but not even cracking
$300m worldwide. The increased budgets for subsequent films against diminishing
box office returns proved to be a poor corporate strategy, and the failure of Allegiant led to the final half being cancelled.
For a time, there was discussion of giving fans closure and converting it into
a TV production, but as of last year talks have dwindled due to a lack of
interest. It’s almost as though the studio got greedy and cared less for the fans than they did for their wallets.
But it was Warner Bros. that may have made the biggest
mistake, as it was announced a mere six months before the release of its first
instalment that The Hobbit adaptation
would be expanded from two films to three; a move so poor that it led to production
issues and practically destroyed director Peter
Jackson. With each instalment sitting at runtimes longer than two hours for
a book that was shorter than any one Lord
of the Rings instalment, the goodwill the original trilogy gave to fans was
tarnished as it suffered from pacing issues and uncharacteristic moments of
poor visual effects and sequences. The first instalment, An Unexpected Journey, may have passed the prestigious billion
dollar mark, but was highly criticised for its long stretches of empty
storytelling – the journey itself doesn’t start until an hour into the
near-three hour movie – and over time each entry (despite having increasing
budgets) never reached the same financial high, and likewise is often forgotten
despite the supposed impact a prequel trilogy to the highly-regarded Lord of the Rings series.
Warner Bros. hasn’t learned its lesson though, as two years
after the Harry Potter series ended
they announced a prequel-esque series of five films set within the Wizarding
World. At the time fans were excited – after all, Harry Potter was still engrained into the public zeitgeist – but
six years on and, like The Hobbit before
it, the series lost that audience goodwill. Box office has dropped between both
Fantastic Beasts entries despite being
early in its franchise run, despite the increased focus on nostalgic elements
such as Dumbledore, Nagini and Hogwarts, and there’s since been murmurings that
the studio will be cutting their losses and concluding the series in the third
and next instalment rather than in its fifth. It likely hasn’t helped that Potter creator and Fantastic Beasts screenwriter J.K.
Rowling has made questionable public statements surrounding both the franchise
and modern day politics, nor does having Johnny
Depp in a major recurring role shortly after accusations of abuse against
former wife Amber Heard.
The thing is, all these movies have failed to truly grasp why
the initial decision made by the Harry
Potter team made sense – at that point, they had six films under their belt
that had spanned eight years and where we had seen this cast of child actors grow
up right before our eyes. It also had the darkest tone of the series which had to
cover a much larger ensemble cast of returning characters, with some major players
being killed off. That’s not to say the Deathly
Hallows perfected the formula right out of the gate, as due to it being more
heavily married to its source material than prior entries it lends to a largely
slow first part that has interesting character moments against a purely
bombastic second part which (bar the relationship between Ron and Hermione) was
predominantly focused on the conclusion of Harry’s arc. With a bit more creative
freedom, Ron’s departure from the group would have worked stronger if he left
later in the first half and didn’t return until the second half; allowing for a
bigger fan response whilst perhaps feeling more earnt than just returning less
than an hour later. But it still succeeded in meeting fan expectations while
making a final entry that concludes the wider story alongside the central conflict
of the Deathly Hallows.
Right before the bust of the multi-part movie, both DC
Entertainment and Marvel Studios announced that their future superhero team-up
movies would be split into two parts, with Justice
League promising to finally bring DC’s titans together on the big screen after
years of anticipation whilst Avengers:
Infinity War would be concluding a decade of movies alongside finally
showing us why Thanos – a character that had repeatedly been hinted at as early
as Thor – was someone we should be
anticipating. Justice League ultimately
would be reduced to a single film following the poor reception of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (and
even then the film went through several difficult periods, becoming a joke
amongst the fan community), but Avengers:
Infinity War proved to be the first to replicate the Harry Potter effect. But where Infinity
War and Endgame surpasses Potter and maybe even perfected the formula
was through its execution and desire to still be seen as two distinct movies
despite carrying the same overarching narrative and serving the purpose of
ending the arcs of multiple long-lasting characters. But it shouldn’t really be a surprise that directing duo Joe and Anthony Russo were capable of
doing such a thing, as the very piece of media that led them to being a part of
the Marvel Cinematic Universe did that exact thing close to a decade prior: Community.
To Be Continued...
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