[HPforGrownups] Movie Question/ Next Books in Light of Current season

[Susan Hall]

No: HPFGUIDX 26121

Mindy asked

>I am an extreme ignoramus in such matters, as I do not watch movies.
Please forgive me if I sound like an imbecile. But I'd like to know who
>was the person who decided to make an HP movie and who makes the money
>off it. Was it JKR who hired someone to come up with a movie or was it
just some private person who saw this as a golden opportunity to shell in
>some $$$ and then consulted JKR for permission? I am not very well
informed about such stuff & that's why I ask.

I'm a copyright lawyer (although an English one, so  if the US position is
different then Heidi's your woman) so I can explain about this.

JKR as the owner of the copyright in the HP books has the rights to control
who makes a "translation" or "adaptation" of those works.
Translation/adaptation  doesn't just include foreign languages (which seem
to have have had  fairly mixed success, accordingly to the people on the
list with better linguistic skills than I have)  but into different formats
such as plays, films and even computer games.

So probably several studios wanted to make a film of HP, so went into a
bidding war with JKR (via her agent).  (As a matter of fact a friend of mine
who is in movies says his company offered 100 million several years ago and
were told they hadn't even come close). Fortunately, since by this point she
had both financial independence (a Jane Austen joke,- if you aren't a JA
fan,  it translates as "considerable wealth") and had retained her artistic
integrity, she held out for the maximum artistic control, even though I
expect it cost her a few million quid (but, there you are, if you have a lot
of the same sort of things, what's the point?).

On the subject of how she takes the series in the light of recent events I
can only point to the final act of Rupert of Hentzau (the sequel to Prisoner
of Zenda).  In that the hero has a difficult moral choice.  He reaches a
decision but is killed before saying what it is.  The old family servant
says "Whatever Mr Rassendyll would have decided, we can be sure it would
have been the right thing to do."

Hopefully we will in fact find out what JKR's right thing was while she is
still breathing, but I am equally confident that it will be the Right Thing.

Susan

Susan