When Wizards collide - Line blurs between 'Harry Potter' books and movies, but genres remain distinct.

When Wizards collide - Line blurs between 'Harry Potter' books and movies, but genres remain distinct.
By Mark Caro
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published July 8, 2007

When Warner Bros. launched the Harry Potter movie series in 2001 with "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," it was far from a given that the books' legions of fans would accept the cinematic Harry. Author J.K. Rowling's vision is so detailed and imaginative, her characters so distinct and layered, her plots so inventive and intricately constructed, that successfully translating the books into 2 1/2-hour chunks of film seemed improbable at best -- especially given that loyal readers would seize upon every alteration.

Yet here we are almost six years later, and the two worlds -- the one on the page and the one on the screen -- have become irrevocably mixed. Even the books' most die-hard fans admit they have trouble reading without picturing actors and settings from the movies.

That's no accident. The filmmakers and studio have gone to great lengths to merge the movies and books in fans' minds, even beyond trying to make "faithful" adaptations.

Still, the books and movies -- and their respective cultures -- are not the same, a point being driven home this month by the great Harry Potter convergence.

The fifth Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," opens this week. And July 21 is the release of Rowling's seventh and final Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." The anticipation for this enormously popular book series' wrap-up makes the buildup to the "Sopranos" finale sound like one hand clapping in the wind. The movie, meanwhile, is expected to be one of the summer's biggest hits.

Usually there's more distance between the release of a Potter book and movie; the smallest previous gap was the four months between the July 2005 release of the book "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and the November release of the movie "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

Usually there's even more distance between books in a series and the movies based on them. J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" was more than 45 years old when director Peter Jackson's film trilogy began in 2001. C.S. Lewis' seven-book "The Chronicles of Narnia" series also unfolded in the 1950s before being launched as a movie series in 2005 with "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." (The second entry, "Prince Caspian," is in production.)

True, Ian Fleming was still writing James Bond books when the movie series launched in 1962 (he died in 1964), though he wasn't telling one interconnected story. For the past several years, the filmmakers behind the Potter series have been attempting to stay true to a story of which the ending won't be revealed until July 21 -- so not only does producer David Heyman have to keep the story on track through "different visions of different directors, but also he has the incredibly difficult job of the series not being finished," said Steve Vander Ark, Web master of the encyclopedic Harry Potter Lexicon site. "So he's guarding a story that he doesn't completely know."

Hence "Order of the Phoenix" director David Yates' recent revelation that Rowling suggested he return ornery house elf Kreacher back to movie No. 5 because Kreacher plays a role in the finale.

Well-deserved credit

The high stakes in getting things right for book fans -- while winning over general moviegoers -- are evident in what has happened in more recent attempts to create movie franchises from popular, contemporary book series. The shaky commercial and critical reception of "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" (2004), "Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker" (2006) and "Eragon" (2006) stacked the odds against those franchises reaching film No. 2. ("The Golden Compass," the first adaptation from Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, is due in December.)

So the Potter filmmakers and Warner Bros. deserve credit for having sustained a series that not only is commercially viable but also has been embraced by the fan base for its detailed depiction of life at Hogwarts wizarding school as well as its impeccable casting (especially among the adults).

"They try really, really hard to make them good for the fans as well as the general audience, and that's a tough balance to strike," said Melissa Anelli, who runs the Potter fan site The Leaky Cauldron in New York City. "If the first movie wasn't faithful, we wouldn't be as excited about the franchise as we are now."

That said, to Anelli and many other Potter devotees, the movies remain the side attraction, not the main event. "The books are always bigger, exponentially bigger," she said. "The books add to the lore. The movies just show the lore that we already know."

"I think for most real hard-core Potter fans, the movies are just something to tide us over until we get another book to read," said Emerson Spartz, who runs the popular MuggleNet Web site from LaPorte, Ind. "They're a pleasant distraction but nothing that we devote Web sites to."

MuggleNet nonetheless features two parallel ticking clocks at the top of the site, one counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds till the release of the "Deathly Hallows" book, the other counting down the same for the "Order of the Phoenix" movie.

"Normally we'd spend an entire year [counting down to] whatever date the movie's coming out -- it's a huge celebration," Spartz said, deeming the current movie countdown "anticlimactic." "Now Harry fans are going to see the movie, then go back to their computers and watch the clock tick down to the 21st [for the book]."

Leaky Cauldron has two ticking countdowns, too -- one for the movie and one for the book. But on The Harry Potter Lexicon, the movies have a minimal presence.

"We don't consider the films to be part of the official Harry Potter world," said Vander Ark, who is based in Grand Rapids, Mich. "We don't catalog that stuff. We just talk about the books. We make a clear distinction between what is 'canon' and what is somebody else's creation based on the work."

Yet Warner Bros. invited Vander Ark onto the "Order of the Phoenix" set, and he filed reports for his Web site and appears as a talking head in a promotional Potter special "Harry Potter: The Hidden Secrets," which runs Sunday at 9 p.m. on the A&E cable channel.

MuggleNet's Spartz was invited to watch some of the filming of "Goblet of Fire," and he sent a staffer to the "Order of the Phoenix" set to file reports. Anelli was in London last week to attend the official "Order of the Phoenix" premiere.

The studio's courting of these Web masters reflects its ongoing effort to maintain approval from the Potter fan community. Vander Ark and Spartz both said Warner Bros. has changed course over the past few years after initially striking an adversarial pose with the fan sites.

"They would send legal letters out to every Harry Potter Web site if they used any words from Harry Potter at all," Spartz said. "But they got so much bad press from that that they changed their tack, and they realized how much power the Harry Potter Web sites have, and instead of looking at us as their enemies, they realized we could rally the fan base more, which is what we've been doing."

Vander Ark said the turning point for him came after Rowling gave the Harry Potter Lexicon a fan-site award on her own Web site. After he received this seal of approval, "there was a dramatic difference in who would talk to me."

Still, Warner Bros. hasn't completely loosened its grip. As the keeper of the copyrights, the studio continues to go after projects and events that use Potter terminology, such as the book-release party to take place at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville. It was going to be called Muggle Magic, as the one for the "Half-Blood Prince" release was, but thanks to a Warner Bros. warning letter, it's now officially The Party That Shall Not Be Named.

In a more telling example of Warner Bros. protecting its so-called brand, Vander Ark said when he shot the A&E special, he was instructed to discuss the Harry Potter stories in general without distinguishing between the media in which they appeared. "They didn't want us to use the word 'books,'" he said. "They didn't want to separate books and film. Warner Bros. wanted to keep them the same identity."

On the flip side, Rowling and the book's American and British publishers (Scholastic and Bloomsbury, respectively) have worked to ensure that the books remain separate from the movies. Most blockbuster movies beget book editions featuring the actors and on-screen images on the covers, but despite the Potter movies' great popularity (the first four have grossed more than $3.5 billion worldwide), there has yet to be a movie tie-in version of a Potter book. Mary GrandPre has done the covers and inside drawings for all of the American books, and the British books have employed a variety of illustrators for separate kid- and adult-oriented editions.



Images entrenched

Anderson's Bookshops owner Becky Anderson is partial to the books over the movies (no surprise) but said she appreciates the movies for providing rich visions of Harry's world that didn't stray too far from what many fans pictured. "Some of the things they created were more magical than what some people could imagine reading," she said.

At the same time, those movie visions have shoved aside pictures residing in readers' imaginations. "Now that we're on the fifth movie, I guess those images of what Harry looks like, what Ron looks like, they kind of entrench themselves in your brain," Anderson said, noting that even if you skipped the movies, "these images are everywhere."

Spartz admitted the movies have affected what he sees when he reads the books. "The vision I had in my head of Harry was much different," he said, "but after they cast Daniel Radcliffe, my vision of Harry and the other characters has gotten much closer to the actors."

The Muggle Academy, a one-week interdisciplinary camp for 12-to-17-year-olds at Northern Illinois University later this summer, grants the movies and books equal status. "I think that [the movies] have really helped solidify Harry Potter's place in our culture," camp director Karley Adney said. "Especially the last two films have really opened it up for more people to think more critically about the world."

One topic is the filmmakers' treatment of Hermione, Harry and Ron's brainy, assertive friend and the series' chief girl character.

Even the clothing changes are seen as culturally significant. "In the book she wears a blue dress, and in the movie she wears pink," Adney said. "There are some things the filmmakers do to hyper-feminize her because she is the only female of the trio, so they want girls to identify with her."

There's a bittersweet feeling among committed Harry Potter readers as the saga nears its close. "A big part of fandom is trying to figure everything out, so once it's done, then where's the fun?" Vander Ark said, though he noted that the "Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars" communities continue to thrive.

These also are the last moments when the books are ahead of the movies. In a few years, both series will be complete, co-existing side by side.

"From now on you're going to have kids who read the books who already have seen the films," Vander Ark said. "It's a lot less likely that anybody will be surprised by this."

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'Order of the Phoenix': The long and short of it

Among Potter die-hards, the most controversial of the movies so far has been Alfonso Cuaron's "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (2004). It was the shortest movie (2 hours and 21 minutes) even though that third book, at 435 pages, was longer and emotionally richer than the previous two.

The purists complained that Cuaron had cut too much of the plot and back story from what many consider to be the pivotal, and best, Potter book. "They were horribly disappointed in the third film," said Steve Vander Ark, who runs the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site.

But Vander Ark loved the movie, which became the most critically acclaimed of the series up to that point. Cuaron was the first director to put a true filmmaker's stamp on the material, a point appreciated by author J.K. Rowling as well as MuggleNet Web master Emerson Spartz (and this writer).

"Cuaron really made the movie into a work of art on its own instead of a literal transposition from book to movie," Spartz said.

Now David Yates' "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is poised to become even more disputed because it's the shortest movie (2 hours and 19 minutes) of the series' longest book (870 pages). So if you go in there with a checklist of everything you expect to see, expect to leave a lot of empty boxes.

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mcaro@tribune.com