The Rise and Fall of Harry Potter

Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived

was the centerpiece of one of the most successful media franchises of all time

From the books, the movies, the merchandise, the video games, the theme parks, and the spin-offs

they were all wildly successful. And there were hits from basically the first book

dropping in 1997. And yet, in recent years, the once beloved franchise has started to magically disappear

I'm Dave Baker. Today on Total Nerd, we're going to explain the wizarding world

and how it was created, how the franchise became a worldwide phenomenon, and then how it all started

to collapse in recent years. We'll first be talking about the rise of Harry Potter, so if you're in it

for the fall, feel free to jump to... Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was the first book completed by J.K. Rowling in 1995

The book was incredibly hard for a single mother to sell, having written the manuscript on old

manual typewriter paper, seemingly the type they'd probably use in Harry Potter. No less than a

dozen publishing houses rejected the book, which was eventually then published in 1997, a full two

years later. The book became an instant hit in England, which led to Scholastic buying the

American publishing rights in 1998. In the purchase, they insisted on switching a key word in the

title. The switch has confused and infuriated fans of the series ever since, and Rowling has stated

that she would have fought for the original title if she had more influence at the time

The book became a smash hit in the United States, and Rowling completed the second book in the series

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in July of 1998. In October of the same year, Warner Brothers purchased the film rights

to Harry Potter for £1 million, or $1.65 million at the time

Christopher Columbus was tapped to direct the first film in the series. In addition, many highly respected Ailish English stars were added to the cast

including John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Richard Griffiths, Richard Harris, John Hurt, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, and the list just goes on

The film was released in November of 2001 to wild commercial and critical success, setting up the opportunity for the franchise to grow even more

It was during this period of unprecedented success that some of the first Harry Potter-related controversies started to pop up

Warlocks are enemies of God. Several religious organizations denounced the Harry Potter series, comparing its themes of the occult and Satanism to literal witchcraft and anti-Christian behavior

Witchcraft is not fictional and it is not fantasy. Despite this, over the next few years, the series continued to release books and films to widespread success

As each new book in the series was released, new sales records were smashed, sometimes set by the previous book in the series

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, for instance, sold 372 775 copies of the book in its first day of release in the UK nearly as many as The Prisoner of Azkaban sold in its first year The film series also continued to have widespread acclaim and

success over the course of the 2000s. Alfonso Caron, Mike Newell, and David Yates were all

brought in to direct installments of the franchise. The cast saw notable additions of actors like

Ralph Fiennes, Jim Broadbent, Helen Abonam Carter, Gary Oldman, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson

and many, many, many more. The film adaptation of the final book was split into multiple movies, a unique move at the time

following some critiques that the film had left out key elements from the books previous

Since then, several other franchises have started to follow this trend of splitting

various young adult books into multiple films, including the finales of Twilight, The Hunger Games

and well, basically the entirety of The Hobbit. Potter fans were also gifted several theme parks in the 2010s

each of which were additions to existing locations of Universal Studios. And Universal Studios has since launched a second state

as well as locations in California, Japan, and Beijing. There was also a stage play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, that hit theaters in 2016

The Potter franchise has also released several video game tie-ins. Other video games, such as the Lego Harry Potter series and a Quidditch-themed game

were released as well. Basically, if you wanted to get your fix of Harry Potter, you had outlets

In 2013, a new film series set in the Harry Potter universe was announced

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The series would be written by Rowling and had a five-film planned arc

It would explore the adventures of a character named Newt Scaramander, and would be based on Hogwarts textbook surrounding mythical creatures

While fans grew excited to have more of the series in their lives, as production started, more and more bad news for the franchise kept seeping in

As production started on the Fantastic Beasts film and the Cursed Child stage play, all seemed to be going well for the franchise

Despite a few hiccups and criticisms of Rawling herself, this looked to be a rising franchise with more content than anyone could ever consume

Then, upon the release of the first Fantastic Beasts film, things started to take a turn

At the end of the first film, Colin Farrell's character Graves turned out to be the series' main villain, Gelbert Grindelwald

At the time, Depp's personal life was very much in the public eye, after numerous allegations started to come out that he verbally and physically beat his wife, actress Amber Heard

The situation became and still continues to be extremely controversial, as similar allegations

have been made that Hurd had been the one engaging in the physical violence

To this day, the case is still in litigation, but the air of controversy made the situation

of Depp's casting all the more wrought with unease. Fans were split on whether or not Depp would be a good choice as the villain for the budding

franchise, with or without considering his personal life. Depp had been long thought to be an exceptional actor, but he had been coming off of a string

of big budget flops. Rowling repeatedly defended the casting choice on numerous occasions but interest in the new franchise started to decrease The sequel film Fantastic Beasts The Crimes of Grindelwald with Depp notably taking a major role was released in 2018 For the first time in the Wizarding franchise history the movie received a negative score on

Rotten Tomatoes and had the worst performance at the box office of any film in the series

While the Wizarding film series was met with a continual onslaught of setbacks, many other

Potter-related projects were going well in comparison. The same year that released Crimes

of Grindelwald, the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child won a Tony Award for Best Play

Rowling continued to be a cultural icon in her own right. She became the first author to accumulate

$1 billion in earnings, was named Barbara Walters' most fascinating person of the year

and was made a member of the Order of Companions of Honor for service to literature and philanthropy

in 2017. Despite her level of unprecedented success as an author of one of the most iconic

series of all time, Rowling continued to add details to the Harry Potter series over the years

After casting a black actor to play Hermione in The Cursed Child, Rawling suggested on Twitter that the character might have been black the entire time

She started to address fan pages directly on speculation that characters could or were in

relationships with each other throughout the series. Rawling was particularly active with

many of her fan groups, both official and unofficial. She would also single out individual

fan pages, blogs, and other media attributed to Pottermania and give small insights into the

the characters and the world she created. Many fans were excited to hear from the creator

of the franchise herself. But this was also met with criticism from some fans who saw many of her comments

as attempting to create excitement for her series by retroactively changing key details

Then in January of 2019, amidst all the complaints of the franchise, the Pottermore Twitter account revealed

might what be the strangest possible detail about the Harry Potter franchise that they could have possibly

come up with. The absolute absurdity of this post, coupled with the growing resentment from fans about all the details being revealed

led to a wave of people making fun of the author. Basically, J.K. Rowling became a meme

Fans, casual viewers, and the internet as a whole started dragging J.K. Rowling in early 2019

The basis of many of the jokes were centered around the idea that J.K. Rowling had nothing more to do

than retroactively add or change details of the Harry Potter series, either to shock her audience or make the series appear more progressive in some strange way

Here's looking at you, Dumbledore. Dumbledore being gay? Yeah. Was that something that was just thrown out for the American press to get them stirred up a bit? No

Though it did. Though it did. Which obviously was very funny. Rowling was publicly criticized for many of her choices with regard to the beloved franchise

both before and after the series was completed. There were several accusations that the initial series itself was actually kind of problematic

Wow, we're identical. such as the lack of representation of diverse characters

and the few diverse characters being well underdeveloped or just plain outright racist Yeah take it away Ernie It going to be a bumpy ride Cho Chang in particular has been a character many fans

have taken issue with. Her underdeveloped character was among the complaints. But some have also pointed out that the book

is full of whimsical, made-up names. Cho's seem to just be a combination

of two Korean-sounding surnames shoved together. Fans have also called attention to the Patil sisters

characters who barely appear in the series, perhaps whose most notable appearance is just to show up at the Yule Ball in unflattering clothing

suggesting a lack of wealth. These accusations of racism were not helped by the time the Fantastic Beasts films were released

Nigiri, the character originally thought to just be Voldemort's pet snake, was revealed to be maledictus

In other words, a woman who will eventually turn into a snake. Fans took issue with the character's role in the story

as she serves as a servant or slave character later in the series

Rawling based the character in real Indonesian mythology. However, as some pointed out, may have gotten some of the key details just wrong

In June 2020, Rawling faced controversy yet again after tweeting about an article using the phrase

people who menstruate. Rawling initially tried to jokingly tease the article about their use of the

phrase implying that they should just have said woman. However, after facing backlash for the tweet

Rawling doubled down. Rawling defended her stance on the issue of gender, stating

if sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women

globally is erased. She then went on to defend the position in an article that she tweeted out

with the phrase, TERF Wars. TERF, the acronym for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, has often

been used to describe women who reject the idea of trans women being women. Rawlings' article was

an attempt to defend her position while explaining her own experience with domestic abuse and sexual

assault. Following this series of opinions coming to light, many fans grew angry again at Rollin

Many of the actors featured prominently in the Potter series came to the defense of the trans

community, including Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Eddie Redmayne, Havana Lynch, Bonnie Wright, and

Katie Lung. Daniel Radcliffe even went on to publish a blog defending trans people on a prominent

LGBTQ plus organization, The Trevor Project. Many fans and fansites denounced the comments made by

Rawling, and more resentment grew towards her role in the franchise. So, there you have it. Harry

Potter continues to be a thriving business, but there is seemingly less and less enthusiasm for

many of the fans. I'm so sorry. Like Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and many other franchises, this

once-beloved series now seems to have been tainted. Can Harry Potter fans forgive the mistakes since

the end of the original franchise? What will J.K. Rawlings' role be as the franchise moves on without

Can Potter fans forgive mistakes made since the ending of the initial series

Will new Potter products have the same kind of impact that the originals had

What kind of role will JK have as the franchise moves forward? And is anybody even still really excited for the new Fantastic Beasts movie