The 21st Century has been a game-changer for the fantasy genre on screens big and small. There have been at least a couple of different boom periods: on TV, this really dates back to Game of Thrones and the attempt of other networks to find their own version, be it The Witcher on Netflix, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Prime Video, or even HBO’s own spinoff House of the Dragon. But in terms of movies, it goes back much further, and was ultimately defined by a pair of blockbusters releases.
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On November 16th, 2001, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Sorcerer’s Stone was released in the U.S., bringing the book phenomenon to the big screen. This wasn’t just a largely worthy adaptation that did a great job of capturing the magic of the source material, but was a massive success: it grossed $974 million at the box office, enough to be the second highest-grossing movie of all time back then (and has subsequently crossed $1bn thanks to re-releases). This served as proof of concept for the franchise, which would have a further seven movies, but also the fantasy genre as a whole.
Harry Potter Sparked A New Wave Of Fantasy Adaptations
Harry Potter was a movie sensation, and so unsurprisingly, everyone wanted their own fantasy franchise that could appeal to children and adults alike. Hollywood trends are often cyclical: the genre had a great period in the 1980s, but that began to tail off and, Disney animation and some cult favorites aside, the 1990s were a pretty rough time for it on the big screen. Potter, then, was it roaring back to life, and suddenly fantasy = the biggest business possible, which meant everyone wanted a piece of the action.
Throughout the rest of the decade, we saw a slew of intended copycats, several of which were admittedly based on strong source material, but none of which captured the same level of success as the Wizarding World. The Chronicles of Narnia, Eragon, Percy Jackson, The Seeker, The Golden Compass, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and many more came and went without leaving much of a trace on the cinematic landscape. There were individual flaws to each, but they all tried to cash-in on the Harry Potter hype, but without the same level of quality control that had made those movies great and, to be fair, without the same huge built-in fanbase that would them a hit.
That’s not to say that some franchises didn’t capture Potter’s audience, however, even if they weren’t fantasy in quite the same way. Twilight, The Hunger Games, and even the MCU all, to varying degrees, owe their audience and success to the Wizarding World becoming such a massive movie saga. They all found the right blend of talent, world- and franchise-building, and importantly, cultural cache and perfect timing to become mammoth, long-running franchises that actually worked and appealed to similar demographics as Potter, and that itself pushed us into the franchise and IP-dominated landscape we live in today.
Lord Of The Rings Was Better Than Harry Potter – But Less Imitated
It’s wild now to think that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring released just one month after Harry Potter started, and it was another box office smash, grossing $887m worldwide. While the Potter movies are good, the Lord of the Rings films are great. These are true epics, and it’s one of the greatest trilogies ever made, with a stunning level of craft that not much else in the genre has come close to since. And that itself is an interesting point.
Lord of the Rings was key alongside Harry Potter in prompting the new generation of fantasy movies and franchises that came along in the 2000s and beyond, but most of them were more like Potter in approach – because LOTR was so difficult to pull off. This was essentially one continuous story, filmed back-to-back-to-back, mostly shot on location, with a mix of practical effects and groundbreaking CGI.
Potter created a blueprint for scalable fantasy franchise movies, and again it’s where the MCU comparison point comes in, where much of it can be filmed on a studio lot, and you essentially get a continually moving production pipeline. Lord of the Rings was the kind of meticulous, monumental effort than there’s so often not the time allowed for, because it is so much harder to do (and even harder to get right, as The Hobbit trilogy highlights).
Still, Lord of the Rings did have its own progeny, and it brings us somewhat full circle: Game of Thrones. A Song of Ice and Fire wouldn’t exist without J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, and Thrones would’ve likely never made it to screen without the success of the Middle-earth movie franchise. That production did take LOTR’s approach and took it to the small screen, inspiring its own wave of wannabes.
On the big screen, for me, the closest we have is Dune, where the sheer level of craft, and of creating what feels like a cinematic world we’re truly transported to, is the one that’s most evoked what going to see The Lord of the Rings was like, but that it took 20 years is testament to what Peter Jackson pulled off with his fantasy masterpiece.
The Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings movies are available to stream on HBO Max.
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