Can Harry Potter's movie success send anyone back to the books?

The latest installment in the film version of the Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1," had a massive box office opening this weekend, clocking in at more than $125 million in the U.S. alone.

Usually, that kind of popularity for a film that's based on a book has some literary blowback; publishers might even expect that the paperback would pop back onto bestseller lists, as happened this year with Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love."

But considering that "[a]bout 25% of the audience for 'Deathly Hallows' was between 18 and 35, compared with 10% for 'Goblet of Fire,' " as our sibling blog Company Town reports, that book sales bump may be in question. It seems that the Harry Potter viewership is aging in parallel to the demographic of those who've already read Harry Potter.

J.K. Rowling's first book in the series was released in the U.S. as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in 1998. That means that the kids who were first on the bandwagon -- it's recommended for ages 9-12 -- are now in their early 20s.

Of course, Harry Potter started in the U.S. in 1998, but it didn't stop there. There have been seven books in all, the last of which -- "Deathly Hallows" -- came out 11 years later, in 2009. The series has been massively popular, selling mroe than 375 million copies worldwide, in dozens of languages. It made Rowling the world's best-paid author in 2008, according to Forbes Magazine.

As a result, there are lots and lots and lots of people who have grown up reading Harry Potter. They're enthusiastic enough to want to experience Harry Potter in the real world. Hundreds of high schools and colleges across the U.S. play Quidditch -- Middlebury College in Vermont -- was victorious at the Quidditch World Cup earlier this month. They're going to the movies, putting "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1" on track to meet or exceed 2009's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," with hopes of reaching "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," the first in the series and still its greatest box-office champion.

As Company Town notes, production company Warner Bros. targeted its marketing campaign to Harry Potter's "consistent but huge audience of fans."

But if those people became fans as Harry Potter readers, can the movies' success draw a new audience to the books? Or is Harry Potter something that you already love or will never quite understand?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1." Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Comments

[Rhys]

Deathly Hallows came out in 07, not 09...

[Mark]

Disappointed

[meg]

I don't know if people are buying the books, but they're certainly checking them out from my library! A display to celebrate the new movie with copies of HP books, large-print books and audio books was empty -- every copy in the library gone -- by the end of the day thanks to people nostalgic for HP or simply wanting to brush up before watching the film.

[Jax]

'Deathly Hallows' was released in hardcover in 2007. It was released in paperback in 2009.

[Jennifer]

I believe the movies certainly have clouded the books, but any true Harry Potter-fan will nevertheless be reading the books for years to come.

[Lynn]

I have friends that got caught up in the excitement of the movies and have seen the movies only, and now with the complexity of the stories are finally starting to read the books.

[Sylvia C. Doigny]

Parents should have a small shrine to J.K.Rowling, her books are beloved by
children everywhere. And these are not short books, they are all well over
500 hundred pages each. Any book that gets children reading is a good thing.

[Kim]

The demographic for the movies may skew older because the ratings for the movie get more restrictive as the content gets darker and more violent. I don't see any less enthusiasm from children about the books. Both of my children have read the series in full, several times over, as have their friends (7-10 years old). But the movies that have come out recently are off-limits for my children and most of their friends. Thankfully, maybe this data shows that I'm not the only one, and that some parents are paying attention to the movie ratings and not letting their kids see movies that are too violent for them.

[goodgrief]

I might be an outlier but the movies totally sent me to the books. I love them both!

[Alexandra, Phem Beta Alpha]

I love the whole Harry Potter-phenomenon. The complex storyline, the 'figgure-this-out-if-you-can' factor and just the entire universe that makes up Harry Potter's world.

As for restrictions regarding children being allowed to watch the films, I agree that especially the final two films should not be viewed by children eleven years or younger.

Anyway, these movies will probably be around forever, so children will be able to watch them when they grow up.