We're starting to think that we could point a camera at a pooing horse for two hours and instantly become richer than our wildest dreams if only we called it Harry Potter And The Magical Splattery Horsey Poo Bum Poo Of Ishra-Nak.
Because, seriously, anything to do with Harry Potter is blowing up like crazy at the moment. Although it's generally regarded as the longest, dullest, most workmanlike of the Harry Potter stories, the movie of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix opened at midnight on Wednesday and instantly made $12 million. It goes without saying that the huge success of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix was partly due to the forthcoming release of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, but $12 million? That's easily the fastest that JK Rowling has earnt that amount of money since, ooh, at least 11.35pm on Tuesday.
There were some initial concerns that Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix wouldn't have the same box office impact as the previous Harry Potter films for a number of reasons. Firstly, as we've said, the book of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is literally three trillion pages long and is full of gloomily dull transitional nonsense to help gear up for the climax of the Harry Potter saga – hardly exciting when you could go and see armies of giant robots exploding cities instead.
Also, the carefully-crafted Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix publicity campaign, based on Harry Potter snogging a girl in the face, was slightly eclipsed by the news that Daniel Radcliffe was going to star in Equus. Who cares about Harry Potter kissing a girl when you can see him stab a horse in the eye with his penis? But it seems that any fears of the first Harry Potter flop were unfounded, because Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix opened in America at midnight on Wednesday and instantly made a ridiculous amount of money, as E! Online reports:
The teenage wizard conjured up an estimated $12 million from midnight Wednesday screenings of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Exhibitor Relations said. The take was nearly $4 million more than reigning box-office champ Transformers grossed all of Tuesday, and was a brightly flashing sign that the robot movie's stay at number one was over. "I was out last night, and I saw lines of kids in tents," Exhibitor Relations' Jeff Bock said, describing the scene outside an Order of the Phoenix theater in suburban Los Angeles.
In comparison, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix made more money in one set of showings than Licence To Wed made over the entire course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Who'd have thought that a high-profile blockbuster sequel of a massively successful franchise would be more popular than Robin Williams playing a funny vicar.
This is just another sign that nothing can slow the Harry Potter juggernaut ahead of the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows publication date of July 21. Literally nothing can stop the clamour for anything to do with Harry Potter – not news that Harry Potter will die, not news that Hermione will die, not the announcement of a crappy-sounding Harry Potter theme-park. And the box office-destroying rampage of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is further proof of that – people are so excited that they're spending their wages to watch an angry bespectacled teenager when they can just as easily see a perfectly good one here for free.
But the real issue here is this – in the face of the massive success of the Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix movie, and the probable even greater success of the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows book, just how is JK Rowling going to be able to quit Harry Potter? Even Rowling herself said that there might be more Harry Potter books. But let this be a warning – that pooing horse idea is ours, Rowling. Ours!
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Brian Donohue says
“Generally regarded?” This is classic Rovespeak/FOX News/Bushspeak garbage, right along the lines of “some say…”. Who is the “general” that “regards” OOTP as “long and dull”? Do you have evidence? Expert opinion? Anything to bolster this otherwise mindless claim? Or are you just grinding an axe? Or is reading so painful to you that 800 pages is simply too much for you–by about 799?
Brian says
Tuesday morning I watched an early screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Overall, I was not that impressed. My take on the movie was that if you never read the book, you enjoyed the movie. For the millions of fans who read the book I think it will be the biggest letdown of the five movies so far. The obviously had to slash much of the 870 page book and the movie really felt like a summary of the synopsis of the cliffs notes rather than a complete movie. But my biggest complaint about the movie is that they changed several key parts of the book for no apparent reason.
It seems that the more successful a movie gets the less people care about creating a quality product and the more they care about rushing the next installment through to the box office. Either that, or the combined brilliance of earlier work takes its toll in individual pride and ego and nobody listens to each other. Read more about post where this movie really falls short at 10 Things I Hate About Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Gilbert Wham says
I generally regard all doorstop-sized multipartite scribblings with magical happenings in them as long and dull. So you can count me in there. Plus, the only things that are better in part II or III than part I are videogames. Everything else is subject to the law of diminishing returns.
RedBlooded Prince says
@Brian Donohue, While i can agree that this is a poorly written and overly emphasized article why the need to bring politics into it?
“Rovespeak/FOX News/Bushspeak”. You stupid liberals are all the same. Pull your head out of your rear for a few and grab a breath of fresh air.