In 1998 Warner Bros Bought The Film Rights To The First Two Harry Potter Books
“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” the second book in the series, was sold in the UK in July of 1998, also to huge acclaim and sales. In October, Rowling announced that she signed a seven-figure deal with Warner Bros. to adapt the books into movies.
By the time the movie series finished its run with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” in 2011, it was the highest-grossing movie franchise of all time. But it was still a risk for the movie studio: No one knew when or how the series would end, and Rowling made significant demands over details like licensing toys with fast food companies.
The Harry Potter Alliance
Andrew Slack, an actor/comedian and Harry Potter aficionado, co-founded the Harry Potter Alliance to highlight the crisis in Sudan and social inequities.In These Times featured Slack in 2007, in an article about Muggle Activists where Slack said, “The Harry Potter parallel to Darfur is simple: With both the Ministry of Magic and the Daily Prophet in denial that Voldemort has returned and evil is afoot, Harry and his underground rebel group, ‘Dumbledore’s Army,’ work with the adult group, ‘The Order of the Phoenix,’ to awake the world. We in the Alliance seek to be Dumbledore’s Army for the real world, working with anti-genocide organisations, such as ‘Fidelity Out of Sudan’ and the ‘Genocide Intervention Network,’ to wake our governments, corporations and media up to the fact that ‘never again’ means ‘never again.'”
When Time magazine asked about The Harry Potter Alliance, Rowling said, “It’s incredible, it’s humbling, and it’s uplifting to see people going out there and doing that in the name of your character. What did my books preach against throughout? Bigotry, violence, struggles for power, no matter what. All of these things are happening in Darfur. So they really couldn’t have chosen a better cause.” Rowling awarded The Harry Potter Alliance a Fan Site Award in December 2007.
Wal-Mart Watch uses parodies of Harry Potter to compare Walmart to Lord Voldemort and draws analogies between House elves and forced labour.
Is Gandalf In Harry Potter
Sir Ian McKellen reveals why he turned down playing Dumbledore in Harry Potter. Few wizards are as beloved as Gandalf the Grey from Lord of the Rings or Professor Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies, and it turns out that Sir Ian McKellen almost played both. When he died, he played Dumbledore, the wizard.
Don’t Miss: Dumbledore Cursed Hand
In 2016 Rowling Released A Harry Potter Prequel Play And Sequel Movie
Last year was another landmark year for “Harry Potter.” The play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” premiered in London, with a book version released around the world in July. Finally, “Harry Potter” fans had another chance to go to a bookstore at midnight and buy a new entry in the series.
The play was written with John Tiffany and Jack Thorne. Its story begins 19 years after the events of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” and it concerns the next generation of wizards that followed in the wake of Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
“It was 17 years and just because Ive stopped on the page doesnt mean my imagination stopped,” Rowling told The Guardian. “Its like running a very long race. You cant just stop dead at the finishing line. I had some material and some ideas and themes, and we three made a story.”
The First Harry Potter Movie Made Nearly $1 Billion
The 2001 movie adaptation of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was a box office juggernaut. Starring Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, and a stable of classically-trained British actors rounding out the cast, it was an enormous undertaking. The Christopher Columbus-directed movie grossed $974.8 million at the box office and paved the way for what would become the most successful movie franchise in history.
You May Like: Whats In Doxycide
Harry Potter And The Cursed Child
While not part of the original seven-book series, Cursed Child and the accompanying stage play have become a generally accepted addition to the Harry Potter canon. This 336-page text picks up where the Deathly Hallows epilogue left off, with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy sending their unfortunately named kids off to Hogwarts Harrys son Albus and Malfoys son Scorpius serve as our protagonists this time around. Upon arrival at Hogwarts, the boys are both sorted into Slytherin and forge an unlikely friendship, which naturally causes tension between Albus and Harry over the next few years.
After a fight with his father, Albus overhears Cedric Diggorys father Amos asking Harry to use a more powerful version of a Time Turner to go back in time and rescue his son. When Harry refuses, Albus enlists Scorpius to help him save Cedric, with the aid of Diggorys niece Delphi. However, as anyone whos seen Back to the Future can attest, messing with timelines is never a good idea especially in the wizarding world. Things are further complicated by the fact that Delphi is not who she says she is, and may have sinister ulterior motives when it comes to rewriting history.
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix gets political in big way: despite Voldemorts revival at the end of GoF, the Ministry of Magic continues to deny all rumors and refuse to take action, worried that theyll upset the public. This means the real adults have to take a leaf out of Harry, Ron, and Hermiones book and start fighting him themselves, through an underground vigilante group called the Order of the Phoenix.
But the Order cant do much about Dolores Umbridge, the newly instated and highly sadistic Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, who perpetuates the Ministrys lies about Voldemort. When Harry openly defies her in class, she retaliates by giving him chronic detention during which he must write lines with a blood quill that carves the words into the back of his hand. Despite this torment, he and the rest of the class do not acquiesce to Umbridge, and establish a secret defense organization for themselves called Dumbledores Army.
On top of all that, Harry keeps having frequent, harrowing visions of Voldemort when hes asleep, and must take Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape to prevent them. This is a different kind of torture, with Snape forcing entry into Harrys private memories at every lesson and relishing the opportunity to cause him pain. Of course, Snapes own twisted motivations are revealed when Harry gains access to his memories one of which is a bitter altercation with Harrys father.
Also Check: Dumbledore’s Ring
The First Harry Potter Book
Before starting another full-time job, Rowling was determined to finish her Harry Potter manuscript. Once she had completed it, she typed it up and sent it to several literary agents.
After acquiring an agent, the agent shopped around for a publisher. After a year of searching and a number of publishers turning it down, the agent finally found a publisher willing to print the book. Bloomsbury made an offer for the book in August 1996.
Rowling’s first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone became hugely popular, attracting an audience of young boys and girls as well as adults. With the public demanding more, Rowling quickly got to work on the following six books, with the last one published in July 2007.
At 26 She Moved To Portugal To Teach English There She Got Married And Had A Daughter
Fed up with secretary work, Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal, and taught English to students. There, she met and married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes and had a child, Jessica named afterJessica Mitford, one of her favorite authors in July 1993. By November of 1993, the couple had separated.
In Porto, Rowling started a “book was about a boy who found out he was a wizard and was sent off to wizard school.” When she moved back to Britain, at the end of 1993, she had “half a suitcase was full of papers covered with stories about Harry Potter.”
Don’t Miss: Jk Rowling Age When Wrote Harry Potter
Opinionwe Want To Hear What You Think Please Submit A Letter To The Editor
Harry Potter, after all, doesnt have to be just about Rowling it can be about us, the readers, who have taken its lessons and used them to make the real world a better place. Whether she meant to or not, Rowling created an army of young people around the world who would grow up in direct opposition to her own hateful transphobia. Lets not let her forget it.
Related:
The Fantastic Beasts Screenplays
Unless you’ve been living under a rock this entire time, you’ve probably heard of the two new Wizarding World movies that have hit Hollywood in the past few years. Led by actor Eddie Redmayne and an all-star ensemble cast, the Fantastic Beasts films tell the story of Newt Scamander, Albus Dumbledore, and the dark battle against Gellert Grindelward in the blackened days before Lord Voldemort entered the scene.
Of course, you can choose to simply watch the continuation of the Wizarding World on-screen but reading the screenplays of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: the Original Screenplay and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald The Original Screenplay will undoubtedly give you that extra level of depth and insight into the characters.
You May Like: Fun2draw Harry Potter
Books In The Harry Potter Series
- Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child although a script and not a novel, it was advertised as the eighth story in the series
On film Harry Potter was portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe, at the time a relatively unknown child actor. His friends Ron and Hermione were played by Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, respectively. Irish actor Richard Harris assumed the role of Dumbledore for the first two films and was replaced after his death by Michael Gambon for the remainder of the series. Voldemort was played by Ralph Fiennes, and his followers included Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy and Helena Bonham Carter as the mad witch Bellatrix Lestrange, among others.
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
Theres quite a bit to unpack in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so well dive right in: after attending an eventful Quidditch World Cup with Hermione and the Weasley family, Harry returns to Hogwarts for his fourth year of school. Its bound to be an exciting one, as Hogwarts is hosting the Triwizard Tournament, in which students from three major wizarding academies will compete. However, only students aged seventeen or older are eligible for the competition, which means Harry is safe for once or so he thinks, until the ceremonial Goblet of Fire selects him as the fourth Triwizard Champion for no discernible reason.
What follows is a nonstop sequence of thrills, landmarked by the challenges of the tournament in which the contestants must tackle menacing dragons, malevolent mermaids, and a maze full of potentially fatal tricks and traps. But even between the challenges themselves is plenty of riveting drama, especially with Rita Skeeter , Mad-Eye Moody , and Hermiones most recent social justice cause . And as anyone whos read it will know, the GoF finale is unprecedented in terms of dark, difficult material, signaling a definitive shift for the series in a more mature direction.
Recommended Reading: Whos My Hogwarts Boyfriend
The Release Of Goblet Of Fire In 2000 Represented A Huge Jump In Popularity
Rowling’s first three “Harry Potter” books “Sorcerer’s Stone,” “Chamber of Secrets,” and “Prisoner of Azkaban” all made Rowling even more popular.
Writing her next book, “Goblet of Fire,” was an intense experience. At 636 pages, it was twice as long as “Azkaban” yet written in the same one-year timespan. Her publishers coordinated to release the book simultaneously around the world for the first time, putting pressure on her to finish it on deadline. During that period, Rowling was also involved in making the movie version of the first “Harry Potter” book.
After the book’s release, Rowling slowed down her writing pace. She told Bloomsbury she couldn’t write her next book in just one year.
“The pressure of it had become overwhelming,” she told the New Yorker. “I found it difficult to write, which had never happened to me before in my life. The intensity of the scrutiny was overwhelming. I had been utterly unprepared for that. And I needed to step back. Badly needed to step back.”
Rowling also later talked about how she hadn’t had time to process the level of her fame. She hadn’t purchased an expensive mansion or yacht she’d been focusing on finishing her books and on her personal relationships. Taking some time to breathe was necessary for her mental health.
Other Book Series You May Like
Readers who read Harry Potter also marveled at the Dragonriders of Pern series of novels by Anne McCaffrey. This sci-fi genre is a historical recount which is tinged with various types of preset-day technology, and it revolves around the inhabitants of a fictitious planet called Pern. Suchlike readers also liked Song of Lioness book work series, which is fantasy fiction and is especially all about siblings on the quest for knighthood. By the same token, Eoin Colfers works, called the Artemis Fowl series, revolves around a young ringleader who has kidnapped a captain.
Also Check: What Is Voldemort’s Patronus
Neoliberal And Capitalist Values
In an article published in prominent French newspaper Le Monde, literary scholar Ilias Yocaris argued that Harry Potter “probably unintentionally … appears as a summary of the social and educational aims of neoliberal capitalism.” According to Yocaris’ analysis, all life at Hogwarts is dominated by a culture of competition: “competition among students to be prefect competition among Hogwarts houses to gain points competition among sorcery schools to win the Triwizard tournament and, ultimately, the bloody competition between the forces of Good and Evil.” The free market plays a prominent and positive role, while the state is presented as inefficient and bureaucratic. In this “pitiless jungle”, education only aims to “give students an immediately exploitable practical knowledge that can help them in their battle to survive,” while artistic subjects and social sciences are useless or absent. Yocaris concludes that “like Orwelliantotalitarianism, this capitalism tries to fashion not only the real world, but also the imagination of consumer-citizens,” producing literature that suggests that no alternative is possible. In an article published in Journal of Contemporary Religion, Michael Ostling also argued that the series depicts a modern capitalist and consumerist society, where the role of gadgetry is played by magic. The article by Yocaris provoked the response by Isabelle Smadja cited previously.
The Tales Of Beedle The Bard
The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of five fairy wizarding tales, told by, well, Beedle the Bard! Professor Dumbledore bequeathed these age-old tales to Hermione Granger, and they turned out to be instrumental in helping Harry Potter crack the clues given to him in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now it’s your chance to read them for yourself. Though the stories in this book all have a magical twist, the themes at their cores still resonate with what we associate with fairy tales: friendship, the everlasting strength of love, and the magic that each one of us possesses.
Don’t Miss: Guy Who Plays Voldemort
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban
The third book in the series introduces Sirius Black, a deranged mass murderer whos just escaped from the wizard prison of Azkaban. As a result, swarms of Dementors dark, faceless beings that suck the soul out of their victims and serve as the guards of Azkaban infiltrate Hogwarts to patrol for Black, whos supposedly after Harry next. To make matters worse, our normally steadfast hero has a bad reaction to the Dementors, which cause him to faint on a train and even lose a critical Quidditch match.
Again, though, its not all doom and gloom. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban also features Professor Remus Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and a school friend of Harrys late father. Lupin and Harry quickly forge a father-son-like relationship themselves, and Lupin teaches Harry the Patronus Charm to protect himself from Dementors.
Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione are squabbling even more than usual over their respective pets, Crookshanks the cat and Scabbers the rat. But what seems like a lighthearted subplot turns out to be a major factor in one of the biggest twists of the series, revealed in the last few chapters and which naturally involves Black and Lupin as well. Oh, and hippogriffs and time traveling, in case that wasnt enough to sell you on it.
J K Rowling’s Childhood
J.K. Rowling was born at Yate General Hospital as Joanne Rowling on July 31, 1965, in Gloucestershire, England.
Rowling’s parents, Peter James Rowling and Anne Volant, met on a train on their way to join the British navy . They married a year later, at age 19. At age 20, the young couple became new parents when Joanne Rowling arrived, followed by Joanne’s sister, Diane “Di,” 23 months later.
When Rowling was young, the family moved twice. At age four, Rowling and her family moved to Winterbourne. It was here that she met a brother and sister who lived in her neighborhood with the last name Potter.
At age nine, Rowling moved to Tutshill. The timing of the second move was clouded by the death of Rowling’s favorite grandmother, Kathleen. Later, when Rowling was asked to use initials as a pseudonym for the Harry Potter books to attract more boy readers, Rowling chose “K” for Kathleen as her second initial to honor her grandmother.
At age eleven, Rowling began attending the Wyedean School, where she worked hard for her grades and was terrible at sports. Rowling says that the character Hermione Granger is loosely based on Rowling herself at this age.
At age 15, Rowling was devastated when given the news that her mother had become seriously ill with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease. Instead of ever entering remission, Rowling’s mother grew increasingly sick.
Don’t Miss: What Side Is Harry Potter Scar On