Rowling, 56 years old, is the creator of the boy wizard. He has also ruled over all aspects of Rowling’s fictional world, including his financial exploits on film, stage, and at theme park rides.
On a chilly November night in 2001, the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone premiered in London.
Author J.K. Rowling walked the red carpet with ‘her’ Harry — actor Daniel Radcliffe — and noticed that the 12-year-old was trembling.
In an effort to comfort him, she placed her arms around his neck. Wow, what a turn!
Rowling, 56 years old, is the creator of the boy wizard. Rowling has also ruled over all aspects of Rowling’s fictional lives, including his financial exploitation onstage and in the theme parks. The total worth of the Harry Potter empire today is estimated to be £180 billion.
But she has now been repudiated by Radcliffe and the other young actors whom she turned into rich-beyond-dreams stars — all for daring to challenge the hard-line dogma of trans activists who insist biological sex does not exist.
Rowling has been condemned so widely that she is being cast in cinematic Siberia. Even Warner Bros which holds the rights to the eight Potter movies, is trying to distance herself from Rowling.
Not only has she been ostracised from the original cast line-up for the televised reunion to mark the 20th anniversary of the first film, but in the newly released trailer for the upcoming Fantastic Beasts film — Rowling’s prequels to Harry Potter — her writing credit is so small you could easily blink and miss it.
Both moves have been widely interpreted as a deliberate act of downplaying Rowling’s involvement in a bid to keep the brand palatable for the next generation of Potter fans.
This is the real problem. What can you do to magically elude the goose that lays the golden eggs? Hogwarts doesn’t have a magic trick for this.
For although Rowling, worth £820 million, now finds herself cast as a modern-day witch for her views — which are shared by millions — she still has almost absolute creative control over all things Potter.
Her control is therefore still in Warner Bros’s hands. No wonder one source this week described Rowling’s presence at the heart of the Potter empire as an ‘unexploded bomb’.
Rowling’s condemnation is so widespread that Warner Bros has taken steps to distance itself from Rowling.
As any bomb disposal specialist will confirm, it is important to handle the situation with care.
Warner Bros producer Casey Patterson may have decided not to invite Rowling at the 20th-anniversary reunion. She put the special together for HBO, who have had the streaming rights to the Potter films since September and have poured a fortune into creating a televisual ‘event’ to drive viewers.
Getting the young stars on board was key, as, despite massive fan pressure, they haven’t been seen all together since the premiere of the last film in 2011.
Patterson, a former MTV talent booker, is known for creating awards shows. She also co-created a talk program with Sharon Osbourne who she is friends. In addition to producing the Vax Live event, Prince Harry was present at it.
But although Rowling will not appear alongside the original cast in the show, which will go out on New Year’s Day, she has not — and cannot — be airbrushed completely.
Asked about the anniversary plans, Rowling’s publicist Mark Hutchinson told me this week: ‘Jo isn’t commenting at the moment, but on the 20th anniversary retrospective, she will be included via archive material with the approval of her team.’
Note the phrase ‘with the approval of her team’. Warner Bros have to seek consent from Rowling’s agent, Neil Blair, and her team of lawyers for every move they make.
Similar to the trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore which Rowling co-wrote, it was noted for undermining Rowling. The two-minute trailer, released this week, opens: ‘Warner Bros invites you’ and only mentions Rowling in small print in a publishing rights note at the end.
This fulfils a legal requirement — they cannot air the trailer without it, or erase her from the brand, however much it might suit them to do so. As they were reminded last week, they cannot silence her views.
Rowling, who was able to use a timing to derail PR campaigns of any kind, returned to Twitter and criticised police rules in Scotland that allow rape victims to identify as women.
In a nod to the ‘doublespeak’ of Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, she wrote: ‘War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. It is not easy to be ignorant. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is A Woman.’
Asked about the anniversary plans, Rowling’s publicist Mark Hutchinson told me this week: ‘Jo isn’t commenting at the moment, but on the 20th anniversary retrospective, she will be included via archive material with the approval of her team’
She is, then, a woman who not only will not loosen her grip on her empire but one who won’t observe a convenient silence.
Lesley Goldberg of The Hollywood Reporter confirms: ‘The Harry Potter franchise has complicated rights issues . . . Rowling controls the franchise and has a say in everything involving the property.’
Warner Bros continues to have problems with Potter’s rights, which it purchased for $250 million in 2013.
It now emerges they want to make a live-action Hogwarts TV series — with a $10 million per episode budget. Casting for scriptwriters and ideas for the series began quietly in January. It would air on HBO’s TV affiliate. The show could be in production by next year.
Meanwhile a further two Fantastic Beasts films are planned and a film of the stage play Cursed Child, Rowling’s story of what happens when Harry and Hermione grow up, is also in development.
The world is full of riches. In fact, the Potter films have earned more than $7 billion worldwide. They also continue to earn millions via streaming.
Harry Potter is an icon in the realm of intellectual property.
Scott Mendelson, of Forbes business magazine, comments: ‘Warner Bros wants to stay in the J.K. Rowling business. It still profits from those groundbreakingly huge Harry Potter movies, the first of which snagged $27 million in China just this year.’
So do her children, who she plucks from the ether and turns into astonishingly wealthy household names.
Rowling, who was consulted over every aspect of the eight films, gave the nod to the initial director Christopher Columbus and had the right to approve every actor — which she did. She wept when she saw Radcliffe’s screen test because he was exactly the ‘son’ she had in mind.
On set, she spent many months helping both the cast and director bring her vision to reality. Her role in the film’s final production was so important that she was credited with executive producer.
Plaudits that will continue to be diminished — all because Rowling stepped into the toxic world of trans dogma. Little did she imagine when she took to Twitter in June 2020 to take issue with the phrase ‘People who menstruate’ the furore that would follow.
She wrote: ‘I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Please help. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?’ There was outrage, led by Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe.
Radcliffe solemnly repeated the mantra ‘transgender women are women’ and said that he hoped Rowling’s venture into gender politics would not taint the books for their fans.
In a statement he said: ‘To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you.’
Within hours of Rowling’s tweet about trans women, Emma Watson cast her aside, tweeting: ‘Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.’
Warner Bros also made a statement which largely sided with the woke mob, saying ‘our inclusiveness is well established, and fostering a diverse and inclusive culture has never been more important to our company and to our audiences around the world.’
It threw just a tiny nod to Rowling’s talents, adding: ‘We deeply value the work of our storytellers who give so much of themselves in sharing their creations with us all’ before concluding that she was nevertheless in need of educating. We recognise our responsibility to foster empathy and advocate understanding of all communities and all people, particularly those we work with and those we reach through our content.’
Rowling has published an essay that is thoughtfully written explaining her support for transgender people. It made no odds, naturally — the abuse continued unabated on social media.
Stephen Fry, who was the voice for Harry Potter, didn’t add his name among those condemning her. He even offered to narrate her latest book The Ickabog which was published shortly after the trans row broke out.
When he drew fire for this, he commented: ‘She’s a friend and will remain a friend. But I’m also sorry that people are upset. I don’t have to break links with J.K. Rowling to say that I have huge sympathy and I endorse the efforts of trans people everywhere to live the lives that they feel they want to lead. I recognise the courage it takes.’
Many would argue it also shows considerable personal courage on Rowling’s part to continue with her campaign for free speech.
She claimed that three weeks prior, she received enough threats of death to have her home tarred. She took on three activists who shared her home address on Twitter — asking people to delete the image and adding: ‘Perhaps — and I’m just throwing this out there — the best way to prove your movement isn’t a threat to women, is to stop stalking, harassing and threatening us.’
Her response marked yet another step in Rowling’s evolution from children’s author to feminist icon daring to challenge the extreme trans narrative.
Her support for Johnny Depp (a fellow victim of cancelculture), is another example.
He’s a personal friend of J.K. Rowling’s — he sold her his yacht some time ago and she stuck by him during his lurid divorce from actress Amber Heard.
Rowling, who has spoken about being a victim of domestic abuse during her first marriage, took Depp’s side when others wanted to cancel him for allegedly assaulting Heard.
She said: ‘Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the film-makers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.’
She spoke up in his place when no one else was willing to. After being called a “wife-beater”, he was eventually sued in 2020 for libel. There was an extended pause.
Depp went to Leavesden, Herts, and was advised by his attorneys that he should be present at the Fantastic Beasts set.
He even shot a scene, before he was ‘asked to resign’ from the role by Warner Bros — it was evident film-goers couldn’t be asked to see him in the role given the evidence of drug use and violence so sensationally rehearsed in the High Court.
The company recast the role but still paid Depp his $16 million fee in full — an extraordinary turn of events which stunned Hollywood.
Depp was so grateful to them. Many believe that J.K. insisted that they ‘look after’ the actor.
Rowling, who has long enjoyed a reputation for being implacable when it comes to her oeuvre, has proved a surprisingly effective player when it comes to haggling with Hollywood’s power brokers.
In a rare early interview about her role in film-making she said: ‘I have stuck to my guns all the way through.’
In the tale of Harry Potter And The Hollywood Power Struggle, she shows no signs of bowing down to the high priests of today’s pernicious cancel culture any time soon.