The Tories, The Mouse, and Their Agendas

Last month, while discussing the cuts in the British arts budgets, The Guardian noted that "David Cameron was asked about the government's plans for investment in the future of British film. He responded by discussing Warner Bros' recent investment in Leavesden studios and suggesting that Britain could, and should, be making more movies like the Harry Potter franchise, and, by extension, fewer movies like, say, the recently released Made in Dagenham or Mike Leigh's Another Year, both of which were funded by the now disbanded UK Film Council."

And, if you don't squint at that assessment too closely, you can see his point. Harry Potter is a hugely successful franchise, based on books with a mostly young and somewhat rabid audience, which has benefited from having some excellent filmmakers on board, young lead actors who, by great luck, have grown more talented with time, and some of the finest supporting actors the British Isles have produced. It would seem, if I were a (let's assume) well-intended politician looking at arts funding, that I'd want to do more of that. On the surface, it's a completely understandable impulse. It's also nonsense.

The fact of the matter is, you can't engineer a Harry Potter. It just doesn't work. At a party, many years ago, a friend and I were discussing the secret of Harry Potter's success, and she (not being a fan) replied dismissively, "because it's pastiche." To which I could only reply, "Yes, but a good many things are. And they're not Harry Potter."

The fact is, the stories of the boy wizard succeed not because they're unique (they're not), or because they're well-written (Rowling has her moments, but on the whole, no), but because the characters and the story strike a chord with their audience. It's a cultural phenomenon, and one that can't really be predicted. And indeed, wasn't predicted. The book had been turned down by several publishers before finding a home, and was printed in a small run. When it succeeded enough to get distributed in America, it was forced the indignity of a name change, because no one believed that anyone would read a book that had the word "Philosopher's" in the title. Harry Potter caught a few breaks along the way, but really, no one expected it to become what it did.

And why did Potter succeed when so many other books failed? Lots of reasons, but I'd put it all down to dumb luck. It hit all the notes that let it resonate a bit with the world outside: There's a sense of gathering darkness, the idea of a young boy that's already been scarred by evil and the inevitable conclusion that, eventually, he'll have to face it; That the young boy has powers that are greater than those around him, but not so great as most of those in his new world; That he's fantastic at some elements of magic (flying, for instance) but not so great at others, and has to study; That he has a touch of darkness in him, even from the get-go, when it turns out that he can talk to snakes (which always just seems creepy); That he's had a hard life, but that has granted him enough humility to not let all this "chosen One" nonsense go to his head (but which he takes serious enough to do what's necessary of him, anyway); That he is, effectively, King Arthur, come around again to save England in its hour of greatest need. Kids looked at Harry Potter, and saw a bit of themselves. Certainly, they saw more of themselves than they did in whatever else was being sold to them. It took the world by storm.

But it was also dumb luck. For anyone who thinks they can duplicate a Harry Potter by design, I offer you the Chronicles of Narnia books. Desperate for its own answer to Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings movies, Disney studios launched into a grand plan to make movies of all seven Chronicles of Narnia books, a prospect which was greeted well by fantasy fans, who have always had a bit of a soft spot of C.S. Lewis, and by a good many Christians, who were interested in the original series' Christian underpinnings.

But there were problems. While everyone loves The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, less people have really read the other books, and those who have know that after Lion, they all get a bit weaker and more problematic. Indeed, even the Pevensie children don't appear in all the books, and Susan Pevensie doesn't get to be in the last book, because she's more interested in lipstick and boys (meaning she, effectively, doesn't get to go to Heaven). Parts are still brilliant, but alas, it's still problematic form a cinematic point of view, all around. Still, there was a fervor for the first film, with Christian viewers even going so far as to mount a campaign against the film's primary marketplace rival, The Golden Compass, the first of three proposed movies made from fantasy writer and noted atheist Phillip Pullman's excellent His Dark Materials books.

And the film did well, even beating Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the box office. (Personally, I found it pretty but a bit boring, and even dozed off during it, and much preferred The Golden Compass, despite its flaws.) But the second film in the franchise, Prince Caspian, severely underperformed, and Disney, seeing the writing on the wall, bailed out of the franchise, which was taken over by Warner Brothers. The third installment, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is out this week, and early reviews have not been kind.

Clearly, the lesson for Mr. Cameron is that nothing is a sure thing, and that indeed, an attempt to make "more movies like Harry Potter" isn't as sound a gambit as it seems. Hollywood is filled with fine movies that have looked like they had every reason to succeed, and failed: Watchmen, for one, which was a flawed film in many ways, but which was still trumpeted by a huge amount of fanfare. Percy Walker and the Olympians looked like it could be another Harry Potter, except it evidently wasn't. The excellent Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Serenity, based on the TV show Firefly, which has a fan base that will not let it die. The list goes on and on. Any one of them, on paper, could have been blockbusters. They weren't. On paper, all of the Narnia movies should be as successful as The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, but the decline seems evident.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the Narnia books don't have a clear hero for the audience to identify with, save for Aslan, who's a Lion. (And Jesus.) There's the Pevensie children, certainly, but they're not in all the books, and frankly, they're not particularly memorable. (Except Susan, who can't get into Heaven because she's discovered boys.) It's not like Frodo or Harry Potter, who are immediate through lines, even with myriad supporting characters.

Now, commercial success doesn't necessarily equate to importance, and indeed, it's probably telling when a story persists despite big ratings or box office --the irrepressible Firefly probably topping the list of properties which persist despite all odds, if only because a handful of people believe in them. But it's not a thing that can be depended on, and indeed, I think the cynicism which rushed Narnia into theaters blinded Disney to the pitfalls of what they were attempting.  You can't set out to create a Harry Potter. But somewhere, someone will be telling a story, and it will spark imaginations in a way others around it aren't, that speaks to the moment in a way that others don't, and whoever's paying close enough attention when that hits just might get lucky.