The Boy Who Lived, and a bit more.

People who know me know how much I champion any kind of spin-off that helps to keep the Harry Potter dream alive, and here is the latest: a play based on the early years of Harry Potter, co-produced (but not written) by J.K. Rowling herself.

When I first heard the news about a Harry Potter prequel play, I sincerely hoped that it would be based on The Marauders, but alas, not to be.  However, I am curious as to how the previously untold story of Harry's childhood will play out, due to us muggles only being aware of it consisting of one place - a broom cupboard.

Future Film Friday: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

July 21st 2007, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hardback novel went on sale worldwide.  Almost exactly 4 years later, the final film was released, and a whole generation went into mourning.  For 10 years we followed the boy wizard's every move, devouring each of the seven novels and booking advance tickets for the release date of each of the eight films. I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when I was eight years old, eighteen when the final book came out, and I was a loyal devotee through till the end.  As much as I still adore reading and finding new, unknown stories to tell everyone about, I don't think anything (or anyone) will ever capture my imagination quite as much as those seven books, because I grew up with them and with him, and I won't ever experience that again.  I both eagerly anticipated and dreaded both the final book and then again the film, because whilst I was dying to know what happened, I couldn't bear it all ending and having to face the realities of being all grown up.  So I was thrilled yesterday when I heard the news yesterday.

Anyone who may have missed it, J.K. Rowling has confirmed that she will be penning the screenplay for a new Harry Potter spin-off - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Fans will already be familiar with this as the title of one of Harry's Hogwarts textbooks, but the film will focus on the book's author Newt Scamander and Rowling has noted that the film is neither a prequel or a sequel and will be set in New York, seventy years before Harry's story begins.

I truly think this is best choice she could have made regarding carrying on the wizarding world tastefully.  As much as I would have loved a series based on the tales of the Marauders, there are now so many fanfics whizzing around the internet that whatever she scripted would have either been cliché and expected or would have disappointed a lot of budding authors who had their hearts set on how they thought it should have been.  This way, she is continuing the magic, but with a character that has remained largely untouched by fans... that said, I am secretly hoping there is maybe a cheeky cameo from a known character, or even just a nod to the future story.

Here's a reminder of some classic HP screen moments: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/at-the-movies/a515150/harry-potter-series-top-10-moments-dementors-millennium-bridge-more.html [source: Digital Spy]

YA genre marketing and fan engagement

Over the past couple of years, I've really embraced the YA fiction genre - possibly more so than when I was actually the target audience. Dystopian fiction in particular has really captured my imagination, but, more importantly, has also caught the attention of Hollywood. Most prominent at the moment has to be The Hunger Games franchise, with the second film in the trilogy set for release in November of this year. One of the great things about this kind of genre, is that it really opens up the opportunities to its target audience, allowing them to interact within this new world. As we have seen in the past with the Harry Potter franchise institution, readers can get fully involved, from connecting with fellow fans through role play (eg 'what house are you?'), fanfiction and fan art at one end of the spectrum, through to truly immersing yourself in the culture of the story, such as the theme park, the studio tour and various tours and exhibitions that have sprung up in the past couple of years.

Back to The Hunger Games, we can see the same thing happening, particularly embracing social media as part of the film's promotion.  One of the best things about movies based on adaptations of existing novels is that they already have that initial fan base, so they can really embrace the story from the offset, and especially so with YA dystopian because there are often very distinctive themes and characters involved, such as the different districts in The Hunger Games.

The main example of The Hunger Games social media promotion, is the introduction of the District Identification Pass (DIP). By logging onto Facebook or Twitter via the Capitol Network, the user will be registered as a citizen of 'Panem' and assigned an district, citizen number and occupation.  The user is then encouraged to join said district on the official HG Facebook page.  There is an elected mayor for each district, but, even more importantly, there are journalists, who provide Hunger Games news and sneak peeks at exclusive content.  This type of social media activity not only actively promotes the film, but really gives the fans a sense of community and enables them to really engage with the franchise.  

That said, there's a few films currently in development that I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for come the months leading up to release date...

Divergent 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1840309/

Another dystopian fic, this time where society is divided into factions based on personality traits - Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent) and Dauntless (the brave). There is also a group of people known as Divergent (BUT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT). Oh, and Factionless (again, less said about them the better). 

I'm really looking forward to how the promotion of this film embraces the different factions and allows fans to choose who they want to be.

The Night Circus

We don't have much information to go on with this film because so far it has only been optioned, but it was optioned by Heyday Films so we KNOW it's in safe hands. 

The film centres around the build-up to a duel between two young magicians against the backdrop of the black-and-white striped canvas tent of The Night Circus which appears out of warning in the night.... Just imagine how beautiful this will be! I can't wait to see stills and concept artwork and when there's magic and circus performance involved, the marketing possibilities for this are almost endless.

Watch this space!