Arts Culture
‘Harry Potter’ Producer Ignored First Book
By MICHAEL WHITE, Bloomberg
David Heyman, the British producer behind the “Harry Potter” movies, ignored J.K. Rowling’s first novel when a copy arrived at his office in 1997.
He took notice only after a secretary raised her hand in a staff meeting to praise “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’sStone.”
“I said, ‘Rubbish title, what’s it about?’” Heyman said in an interview. “She said it was about a boy who goes to wizard school, and I said, ‘Wow, that’s a great idea.’ I took it home that night and read it and fell in love with it.”
That film, and five that followed, comprise one of the most lucrative and critically praised film series of all time.
The first five movies generated $4.48 billion in worldwide ticket sales, according to researcher Box Office Mojo LLC.
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” released July 15, took in a record $22.2 million from midnight showings, according to researcher Hollywood.com Box-Office. The first-day total was $58.4 million.
“I had no idea at all that it would become the phenomenonthat it has become,” Heyman said, “and that I’d be sitting here 12 years after having first read it, talking about the sixth film.”
The producer comes by his love of the stories honestly. As a boy he attended Westminster School, a London boarding school founded in 1179 near Westminster Abbey. It was, Heyman recalled, similar to Harry’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (needless to say, minus the magic).
Like Hogwarts
Westminster students were assigned to a particular dormitory or ‘house,’ just like Harry and his friends, who took their meals in a common dining hall with long tables, similar to those at Hogwarts.
“It had that Gothic architecture, ‘houses,’ a lot of the same rituals,” said Heyman, speaking by telephone from New York, where he had come for the premiere of “Half-Blood Prince.” “It was all very, very relatable to me, and it made me laugh and it moved me.”
Within a few days of reading “Philosopher’s Stone,” Heyman, whose London-based company focuses on adapting books to film, sent a copy to Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Brothers studio in Burbank, California, along with a proposal to turn it into a movie.
Once Warner Bros. approved, Heyman helped negotiate rights to the first book and six more that Rowling planned. The dealinvolved paying higher sums for each subsequent title that was adapted, he said.
Box Office
When making the films, Heyman said he tries not to thinkabout box-office grosses.
It’s not a competition between us and ‘Transformers,’ or us and ‘Ice Age,’” he said, referring to films that have led ticket sales in recent weeks. “Thank goodness ‘Transformers’ has done well, because if people go to the cinema they keep on going to the cinema. So I want as many films to do as well as possible.”
In “Half-Blood Prince,” Harry is assigned by his mentor the wizard Dumbledore, to learn the secret of the evil Lord Voldemort’s apparent immortality. As Voldemort and his allies grow in power, the risk to Harry increases. The conflict results in the death of a major character and big changes in the lives of Harry and friends Ron and Hermione.
The movie’s darker themes are offset by a comic subplot that follows the romantic misadventures of Harry and Ron.
The environment at Westminster School was less threatening, Heyman recalled. His biggest challenge was getting up early each morning to sing in Westminster Abbey.
“Nothing bad happened to me,” he said. “I had a fantastic time.”
He took notice only after a secretary raised her hand in a staff meeting to praise “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’sStone.”
“I said, ‘Rubbish title, what’s it about?’” Heyman said in an interview. “She said it was about a boy who goes to wizard school, and I said, ‘Wow, that’s a great idea.’ I took it home that night and read it and fell in love with it.”
That film, and five that followed, comprise one of the most lucrative and critically praised film series of all time.
The first five movies generated $4.48 billion in worldwide ticket sales, according to researcher Box Office Mojo LLC.
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” released July 15, took in a record $22.2 million from midnight showings, according to researcher Hollywood.com Box-Office. The first-day total was $58.4 million.
“I had no idea at all that it would become the phenomenonthat it has become,” Heyman said, “and that I’d be sitting here 12 years after having first read it, talking about the sixth film.”
The producer comes by his love of the stories honestly. As a boy he attended Westminster School, a London boarding school founded in 1179 near Westminster Abbey. It was, Heyman recalled, similar to Harry’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (needless to say, minus the magic).
Like Hogwarts
Westminster students were assigned to a particular dormitory or ‘house,’ just like Harry and his friends, who took their meals in a common dining hall with long tables, similar to those at Hogwarts.
“It had that Gothic architecture, ‘houses,’ a lot of the same rituals,” said Heyman, speaking by telephone from New York, where he had come for the premiere of “Half-Blood Prince.” “It was all very, very relatable to me, and it made me laugh and it moved me.”
Within a few days of reading “Philosopher’s Stone,” Heyman, whose London-based company focuses on adapting books to film, sent a copy to Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Brothers studio in Burbank, California, along with a proposal to turn it into a movie.
Once Warner Bros. approved, Heyman helped negotiate rights to the first book and six more that Rowling planned. The dealinvolved paying higher sums for each subsequent title that was adapted, he said.
Box Office
When making the films, Heyman said he tries not to thinkabout box-office grosses.
It’s not a competition between us and ‘Transformers,’ or us and ‘Ice Age,’” he said, referring to films that have led ticket sales in recent weeks. “Thank goodness ‘Transformers’ has done well, because if people go to the cinema they keep on going to the cinema. So I want as many films to do as well as possible.”
In “Half-Blood Prince,” Harry is assigned by his mentor the wizard Dumbledore, to learn the secret of the evil Lord Voldemort’s apparent immortality. As Voldemort and his allies grow in power, the risk to Harry increases. The conflict results in the death of a major character and big changes in the lives of Harry and friends Ron and Hermione.
The movie’s darker themes are offset by a comic subplot that follows the romantic misadventures of Harry and Ron.
The environment at Westminster School was less threatening, Heyman recalled. His biggest challenge was getting up early each morning to sing in Westminster Abbey.
“Nothing bad happened to me,” he said. “I had a fantastic time.”
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