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Then sales began to drop. Mattel said it sold $130m to $140m worth of toys the following year, when the second film was released. Children had their trinkets by that point: it is unnecessary to buy a figurine of Ron Weasley with detachable broomstick every time a Harry Potter film comes out. A downward trend in sales is also evident for the computer games made by Electronic Arts, which have sold a total of $427m in America, according to NPD, a market-research company. Over the years video-game players have become older—the average age is now 35, according to the Entertainment Software Association. Older players are less interested in games based on films.
A new opportunity to sell stuff looms. Next year “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” will open in a Universal Studios theme park in Florida. Amateur pictures and videos of the construction site (there are hundreds on YouTube and fan websites) show several tall buildings, including a Hogwarts school. There will be three rides and drinks such as Butterbeer and pumpkin juice, together with “traditional British fare”. And there will apparently be a good deal of shopping.
Impressive though it is, this commercial empire is not the only one to be built on Ms Rowling’s creation. Alongside the legitimate one, a parasitic criminal enterprise churns out DVDs. There is also a mountain of paper comment, ranging from newspaper reviews to academic studies. Harry Potter has been subjected to religious critique (“The Gospel According to Harry Potter”), Marxist interpretation and feminist deconstruction (“Females and Harry Potter: Not All That Empowering”). America’s Library of Congress tallies some 100 books in English about the boy wizard.