Harry Potter and the phenomenally profitable franchise
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 27 December 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's 20 years since the first Harry Potter film was released and the movies and books have spawned a world of wizard-related retail opportunities. Elizabeth Hotson asks Chris Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter films, how he dealt with the pressure of bringing the boy wizard to life. And we travel to Edinburgh for The Potter Trail tour which starts with a spell and ends in a graveyard. We step inside the magical Museum Context shop, and hear form owner, Andrew McRae. Plus, Scott Mendelson, a film critic and box office pundit at Forbes, tells us why he thinks the franchise has been so successful. And we end with a look at the most hallowed of magic artefacts, the philosopher's stone itself.
Presenter: Elizabeth Hotson Producers: Elizabeth Hotson and Sarah Treanor
(Picture of a boy dressed as Harry Potter, Picture by Stephen Chernin for Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Elizabeth Hotson and in today's Business Daily |
| 0:08.8 | we're looking at one of the most successful book and film franchises in history, Harry Potter. |
| 0:15.1 | Over half a billion books charting the perilous adolescence of our Gryffindore Hero have been sold so far. |
| 0:21.7 | These and the Blockbuster Warner Bros. films have spawned a world of wizard-related retail opportunities |
| 0:27.1 | and, you might imagine, some pretty magical profits. |
| 0:31.3 | Potter fans can indulge in the favourite treats of the characters, |
| 0:34.7 | thanks to $20 officially branded chocolate frogs and jelly beans, |
| 0:38.6 | a hundred dollar wizard cloaks and a $70 bag charm of a golden snitch, |
| 0:43.3 | the ball which when caught wins the wizard game of Quidditch. |
| 0:46.8 | And this year is cause for even more celebration. |
| 0:49.8 | The first movie documenting Harry Potter's life is 20 years old. |
| 0:56.8 | But back in 2001, when the Philosopher's Stone, or in the US, the Sorcerer's Stone was released, could anyone really have imagined how |
| 1:01.8 | huge the Potterverse would become? The Boy Wizard was created by J.K. Rowling, who wrote the first book in various cafes and hostilries around Edinburgh, |
| 1:13.9 | using the nooks, crannies and graveyards of the Scottish city for inspiration. |
| 1:18.4 | But it's not just the characters and settings which inspire awe. |
| 1:21.9 | Its sheer earning power makes it a modern publishing and silver screen phenomenon. |
| 1:26.6 | It's difficult to know exactly how much the gilt-edged franchise is worth, |
| 1:30.9 | although we'll have a go later. |
| 1:32.7 | But we'll start our Potter journey with Chris Columbus, |
| 1:35.7 | who directed the first two films. |
| 1:38.8 | You were asked to direct the film after it had already become a phenomenal success in print. |
| 1:45.4 | How did you deal with that weight of expectation? |
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