WSJ on challenges facing Harry Potter
Filed under: Warner Brothers, Movie Marketing, Harry Potter, Five Days of Fire
A couple of days ago, James Rocchi detailed the seven biggest challenges facing the Harry Potter franchise. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal chimed in with a couple more. Being the Dow Jones-lapdogs that they are, WSJ reporter Kate Kelly points out the obvious – it's all about money – but the fiscal problems are all wrapped up in the bigger problem of demographics. There's no denying that the franchise has milked huge pools of money for Warner Brothers. That's great, but each picture has made slightly less money than the last, whilst costing slightly more to produce. Research shows that the youngest demographic has already abandoned the franchise, and Goblet, with its rumored darkness, should only continue that trend. The Potter pics thus have to gain older viewers as they lose the kids. Warners marketing drone Dawn Taubin isn't worried about making that happen. "Each book is a year later; everybody in the book is a year older," she says. "And so I think that the audience ends up trending a little bit older as well."
But how are we defining "older"? Are they talking about losing 3 year olds and gaining twenty-somethings? Does that even seen possible? In my highly scientific research, I've come to the conclusion that there's sort of a wide demographic, from about college-age to young-parent age, that pretty much missed the boat on all this Harry hullabaloo. At 25, I've *never* cared about these movies or book, and there's not a wizard love triangle that's going to change that – at the same time, I know people well into their 50s who can't get enough of this stuff. How do the filmmakers (as James pointed out, they seem to change with every film) tackle the age problem, without bleeding the fans they already have?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-16-2005 @ 2:41PM
josh said...
I think you are a bit off - virtually every one of my 23 to 28 year old FEMALE friends has at least read some of the books. A big percentage are what you would call fans. I don't know many guys my age who are fans, but I do know several guys who are closer to 40 who fess up to loving him.
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11-16-2005 @ 3:20PM
kevin said...
I'm 29 and love the books and the movies, but I got into it by borrowing the books from my wife's teenage sister. I think there are several reasons why it's hard to get a larger (read: older) audience, but the main two I see are (A) not a lot of guys my age read, and Harry Potter would not be at the top of their lists, and (B) the first two movies aimed at a MUCH younger demographic. Prisoner of Azkaban had a much more grown-up look and feel, but how many new people come in to a franchise with the second (and now third) sequel?
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11-16-2005 @ 4:00PM
Amie said...
I'm 24 and I loved reading the books and i'm looking forward to all the movies. And many of my friends at least like the Potter movies and read some of the books. I think most in their 20's dont want to admitt that they like the books &/or movies.
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11-16-2005 @ 5:30PM
Manda said...
For years older fans have complained that they've gotten the short end of the stick from WB. Hopefully that's starting to change. By far the biggest group of adult fans is 20-somethings, but parents (30-45 year olds) are another sizable group. I've even heard of retirees who can't get enough of Harry. The demographic is far from narrow.
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11-16-2005 @ 7:20PM
Michael 8-) said...
I don't think the problem is interest in Harry Potter. I know several 30-something guys who race to the store to buy the latest book. (I'm not one of them, though, and have enjoyed the movies without the books.)
I think the problem is that fewer people want to spend the increased costs of seeing the movies in the theater, and the increased time for commercials and previews before even getting to the film itself.
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11-16-2005 @ 8:07PM
Pat Kehoe said...
I personally have read all of the books and I love them! I have seen all of the movies too. I am not sure the quality of the books measure up to Winston Churchill's "History of the English Speaking People", which I just finished; but they were a lot of fun!
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