“‘Harry Potter’ countdown: Hollywood will look back on franchise as magic moment”

The Hero Complex has this must-read article on the upcoming release of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows — Part 1. An excerpt:

On a sticky June night just outside London, the magic finally came to an end for the cast and crew of the “Harry Potter” movies. After a decade together, the small army that has been the busiest in British filmmaking wrapped the final shoot of the last “Potter” production.

The green-screen scene featuring the now world-famous main characters — a trio of young fugitive wizards named Harry, Ron and Hermione — required actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson to hurl themselves onto some off-camera mats to escape danger at the Ministry of Magic. It was an oddly slapstick finish for such a monumental franchise — but that didn’t sap the emotion of the moment.

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” (Warner Bros)

“I admit it, I did cry like a little girl,” Radcliffe said, recalling the day. “There was a feeling that I had, that we all had, that it was the end of something very special.”

It’s doubtful that pop culture will ever see a phenomenon quite like this sprawling tale that for a decade cast a spell on the page, the screen and beyond. The fantasy epic begins its Hollywood fade-out

Nov. 19 with the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1” and finishes next summer with the eighth film, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2.”

Both movies are poised to be global blockbusters — and may even earn the franchise its first nominations in marquee Academy Award categories — but the numbers posted by their predecessor films are extraordinary already. The six Warner Bros. movies released to date have pulled in $5.7 billion at theaters worldwide; home video adds an additional $1.3 billion. The seven novels from which they sprang, written by J.K. Rowling, account for 400 million books sold in 69 languages. Then there’s a jaw-dropping $7 billion in retail products, a recently opened amusement attraction in Orlando, touring exhibits of props and costumes and plans for a permanent exhibit at Leavensden Studios, the franchise’s home outside London.

For more, go here.

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