Malaya and I saw it Friday afternoon, in an 80% full theater, though no one talked too annoyingly, and only one idiot's cell phone went off, so the crowding in the theater didn't make for much difference one way or the other. It does bode well for the movie's box office prospects, since the theater was much more crowded than it was when we saw The Day After Tomorrow or Shrek 2, both of which opened huge. Of course we saw Shrek 2 on Thursday, and it wasn't really profitable until Fri-Sun, but TDAT we saw on a Saturday afternoon, so that's a valid comparison.

The weekend estimates aren't available yet as I'm writing this, but HP seems to have a good shot at breaking Spider-Man's all time record. It's already broken the record for all time biggest opening day, and it's on more screens than Spider-Man was. That record might not last very long though, given the way ticket prices are ever increasing and theaters are willing to show more and more prints of the movie. Hell, if Shrek 2 hadn't opened mid-week, it would probably be the record HP3 was shooting for, since it's opening weekend was only a few million short of Spider-Man's, and that was after over $21m in tickets in the two previous days.

Most of the critics seem to like HP3 more than the first two, and in fact there's been a steady upward trend. I don't remember any differences between 1 and 2, but I certainly agree that 3 is the best of the lot. HP1 is at 78% positive on RT. HP 2 is at 82% positive on RT. HP3 is at 89% positive, with 129 out of 145 reviews recommending it.

Before I discuss the film further, here's my categorized rating:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Script/Story: 6
Acting/Casting: 8
Action: 5
Eye Candy: 7
Fun Factor: 7
Replayability: 6
Must See on the Big Screen: 5
Overall: 7.5

I enjoyed this one perhaps the most of any summer movie I've seen yet this year, and yes, the whole "expectations" thing ties in. I didn't think much of HP1 or 2, and though most of the early reviews said HP3 was a better film than the first two, I was going to wait and see before I believed. Well actually, I believed as soon as I heard that, since I thought the first 2 were quite mediocre films, so if HP3 was even average it would have been better. And when it turned out to be much better than average, I was pretty happy with it.

Malaya has read the series of books, but has never seen either HP1 or 2, and she liked HP3 less than I did.  her reasons for disliking it were pretty much identical to what I didn't like about it; she just felt more strongly about it than I did. She felt the movie required you to have read the book in order to enjoy it, and she didn't think it was a very good adaptation of the book, since it left out so much stuff, mostly character-based.

I never did a categorized rating of HP 1 and 2, but just for the sake of comparison, here we go. The movies really blur together in my memory, so this is a rating for both of them, since they were nearly identical in style and form and content, and have become completely identical in my memories.

Harry Potter 1 and 2
Script/Story: 5
Acting/Casting: 6
Action: 4
Eye Candy: 7
Fun Factor: 2
Replayability: 3
Must See on the Big Screen: 4
Overall: 5

If I ever see them on DVD at the library I'll grab them and perhaps write up a longer review after I refresh my memory, but I've only seen them both once, in the theaters, since my mom wanted to go.

As for the HP movies, I saw the first 2 before I read any of the books, and found them both relatively boring and mediocre. They were well made, the sets were gorgeous, most of the acting was fine, etc. But the movies were just lifeless, with nothing really exciting or moving in them. Most viewers and reviewers seemed to like them a lot more than I did, and I've not watched either of them again since I read the books, so I can't compare how that knowledge changes the experience.

I do know that it changed the HP3 experience greatly, since while I would have thought HP3 was the best of the movies thus far, and enjoyed it, I would have had great issues with several plot developments and character actions if I hadn't read the book. I would have thought some things made little sense, numerous character behaviors and attitudes were unjustified, and wondered how physical realities were working.  All of those things are artifacts of the screenplay being perhaps 1/3 as long as the novel, since there's just not time to cover everything, short of turning the movie into a mini series. And really, that's what would have been best for this series of films; if they'd been a miniseries, with 6 or 8 hours of film per movie. Or perhaps two, two-hour films per movie, like Kill Bill.

I also missed a lot of stuff in the movie that's in the book. Subplots, background info about character interactions that were entirely removed from the movie, etc. There's nothing about the house cup battle in the film, only one brief bit of a Quidditch match, far less of the fun stuff in Hogsmead, nothing about Harry getting into trouble for using magic away from school, less dramatic and suspenseful build up to the discovery of Sirius, much less of Harry's anger and feelings of isolation, almost nothing about Ron and Hermoine's argument over Scabbers' disappearance, etc. Reading the books didn't really seem necessary or important for the HP 1 and 2 films, but with #3, you'll get a lot more out of the movie if you've read the book in advance, and I'd strongly recommend reading the book anyway, since with #3 and beyond the series really improves past simply kid's literature.

On the other hand, the movie/screenplay did improve several things a great deal. The ending especially, since it was painfully complicated and the time travel elements looped back and forth all over the place. I had trouble following it all logically in the book (and there are some mistakes; things that Rowling didn't think about, which you can read about on HP fansites) and imagined that about 90% of younger readers were completely confused by it. In the movie that stuff is very streamlined and makes perfect sense, even if it lacks most of the emotional heft that it had in the book.

Still, I found the movie fun, and a faithful-enough rendition of the book to recommend it. I can't recommend either of the first 2 HP movies, even to book fans, since I didn't think the movies really added anything, or improved anything. However, I've never seen them since I read the books, so perhaps I'll enjoy them more then. Or at least be able to kill some time comparing what was changed or removed or modified.

Originally posted June 6, 2004.

Box Office Discussion

July 8, 2004

To follow up on the Harry Potter 3 box office, no it didn't break any all time records for the opening weekend, despite Friday's gross being the biggest single day gross ever in the US.  Check out this handy day-by-day listing of the 3 HP movies to compare their takes over time. HP3 blew up Friday, declined Saturday, and declined more Sunday. Every movie declines Sunday, since people don't go to as many late evening showings when they have to work the next day, but the big Satuday drop was unexpected since films quite often do more Saturday than they did on their Friday opening. Especially kid's movies, since kids can go to the matinees on Saturday, when they're not in school and they've got parents to drive them there.

It's too soon to speculate on the long term meanings of the opening weekend, but HP1 made more than HP2, despite HP2 having a bigger opening weekend, and sequels almost always make less than the original films. The LotR movies bucked that trend, and HP might as well, since it's more like LotR with a closely-continuing, ongoing story than a normal, "years later" sequel.  It's very unlikely anything will challenge Shrek 2 for the biggest hit of the year though, since it's well over $300m already, by far the fastest any movie has gotten to that level, and it's a pretty sure bet for $400m+ in the US before the summer ends.

I think more box office attention should be paid to overseas, but this being the "only we matter" US, it's what we mostly hear about. HP3 has already done well over $100m worldwide. Shrek 2? $4.5m so far. The first 2 HP movies both did nearly double worldwide what they made in the US, so even though Shrek 2 will make $50m or $100m more than HP3 in the US, and get the publicity for that, HP3 will probably made $300m more worldwide. Which would you prefer if you were counting that coin?

Pre-Movie Discussion

March 27, 2004

Aging child stars?

Harry Potter 3 is coming this Christmas, and there's a new trailer out that's pretty good. I'm going to discuss it a bit, but not in my usual "why this trailer sucks/rocks" method.  I'm going to primarily focus on something sort of tertiary to the whole thing that interested me for no particular reason. The look of the kids in it, in terms of their apparent ages.

First of all, some background.  I've not yet read any of the Harry Potter books, but I plan to at some point. I almost did over Xmas, when visiting San Diego.  My mom checked them all out of the library per my pre-visit request (I actually thought she owned them and asked her to dig them out for me, when it turned out she'd just borrowed them in the past. So she went and checked all four our in preparation for my visit. Aren't moms great?) but I ended up having far less time to sit around and read than I'd thought I might, and what time I did have I put to work finishing A Storm of Swords, which I have got to write a review of at some point.

As for the Harry Potter novels, my feelings towards them have gone from disdain/disinterest to curiosity to interest.  I now want to read them, and will do so, providing they are at least borderline decent.  I still enjoy some of the better juvenile fiction I enjoyed when I was a juvenile myself, so there's no reason to shut myself off from current examples of the genre.  Especially when they are the most popular novels of our era.  I can take some lessons to boost the commercial prospects of my own writing, if nothing else.

Yes, that's the literary equivalent of my "this event sucked, but at least it's blog material" approach to real life.

My only knowledge of Harry Potter, besides what I've seen in the news, is from seeing the first two movies. I didn't think either of them sucked, but they weren't anything special, and I only went since my mom is a fan of the novels and wanted to go, so I went with her.  You know how you often do things in life that you personally didn't really want to do, and you just did since someone you want to spend time with did?  Exactly.

I'm sort of curious about #3, but since Malaya is lukewarm to the film, despite sharing my belated curiosity towards the books, I don't know if we'll actually go or not. Probably not, since she hasn't seen #1 or #2, and since she's going to read the books at some point, she won't want to spoil any of the plot points for herself in advance.

Therefore, my only knowledge of the upcoming film is from the trailer, and my only knowledge of the books are from viewing the first two movies, one time each, close to opening day.

As I understand it, the books are set one year apart, chronicling each school year, and there are going to be seven of them. We also know that Harry survives and presumably triumphs through all adversity, since Rowling has recently said she's considering writing some more books about him, in his adult years.  Talk about unwanted spoiler info there, eh?  Thanks J.K.

Anyway, the first book takes place when Harry is 11, I believe. In the movie he looked about that age, as did the rest of the cast of kids in his grade. The second movie is a year later, when he's 12.  He looked a bit older then, perhaps 13 or 14, and the other kids, who were cast based on how they looked 2 years earlier (in pre-production for the first film) were all over the place. His friend Ron Weasely still looked 11, the girl Hermoine looked about 12 some of the time, and 16 other times.  Only her frumpy hair, baby face, and all-encompassing robes kept her from looking way too old for the part. The bad guy kid, Draco Malfoy, looked about Harry's age, and was therefore a good foil for him.

Now we're up to movie 3, and while it takes place a year later in the book fiction, it's actually being released two years later in real life. Thus the actors who looked appropriately 11 for the first movie are all over the place in actual age, and apparent age.

If there's any actor they should have replaced in #3 for reasons of appearance, it's got to be him.  Fortunately, Harry and Hermoine look older than they are also, so they can sort of pass for Draco's classmates.  Plus him looking so much older and larger also works since he's the bad guy, and it lets him loom over them and look like a big bully.  Yet they're all supposed to be the same age in the books, and Draco looked as young or younger than Harry in the last movie, so it would be a bit jarring if you only watched the movies, right in a row, expecting a logical year at a time progression.

He's apparently out of the 4th movie, since it's not listed on his IMDB page, though there's no listing for Draco at all on the current Harry Potter 4 page, so perhaps the character isn't even in that one? If he is, I think Tom here is gone, since he'll look like a teacher in another year.

Since they're apparently going with the same Harry, Ron, and Hermoine in movie #4, when they should all look 14 (and actually look 16-18) the whole thing might actually work out.  They'll have to replace them for movie #5, and quite possibly replace those new actors come for movies 6 and 7 since Rowling is apparently having trouble stopping spending money for long enough to write the last two books, and they might not be made for years yet.  But anyway, come movie 5 and new actors (with the possible exception of Ron, since he might be pulling a Gary Coleman), they'll be 15ish, and the long tradition of kids that age on TV and in movies is to cast adults. Everyone on the various teen shows on TV always look like they're about 20, and while that's silly, it works well enough.  Adults identify with them okay while pretending they're younger, and kids all want to be older than they are so they enjoy kids their age who look mature. It's the whole "Seventeen magazine is targeted at 12 year old girls" phenomena. So yeah, Harry and the rest of them will probably look like they're T.A.s from Oxford during the last 3 films, but we're all used to that sort of age inaccuracy in teens on film by now.

It's got to be really hard to cast kids for a teen-aged movie role, since between the time you audition and film and edit and then film some call backs, they can grow a foot and age 5 years.  You can cast this perfect group of 13 year olds, and by the time you film the movie one of them looks like he's been held back about four grades.  So imagine the difficulty they had in casting Harry Potter, and trying to plan on the same actors in several movies in a row, over a period of years. You can see the problem with the kid playing Draco, since they started with a 12 y/o who looked it, while hiring 10 y/os for the other roles, and then 4 years later the 12 y/o is pushing 17 and looks like he's in college.

It will be weird when people in the future view the films, especially if they watch all 7 in a row.  The kids will all look age appropriate in the first two movies, and then suddenly half of them are way too old in #3 and #4, before you get all different actors of varying "teen-adult" ages in #5-7.

I wonder high school teachers or other people who are actually around the same teens several years in a row feel about this?  I hardly remember from when I was that age since it all seemed so relative, but I don't suppose it's at all unusual for some kid to go home one year looking young for his age, and return after the summer half a foot taller and looking like his older brother.  Perhaps to teachers or adults with kids of their own the apparent age disparity between the kids in Harry Potter is nothing, since they've seen it themselves and are used to how quickly kids can change?  If any of you fall into that group, do let me know.

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