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Great media products start trends. “Star Wars” showed studios there was money in toys. Harry Potter has educated publishers about appealing both to children and adults. It has taught studios how to make and sustain blockbuster franchises and how to deal with fans. Perhaps no children’s book series will match Ms Rowling’s for many years. Given the rise of digital media and piracy, Harry Potter may be seen as a high-water mark in the industry.
Yet there will be fresh surprises. Indeed, there has already been one. The books now being devoured on buses and trains concern a romance between a young woman and a vampire. Like the Harry Potter books, Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” first became popular in a place on the fringes of Hollywood’s consciousness: not Britain this time but America’s own “flyover states”. The four-book series by Ms Meyer has sold half as many copies in America as the Harry Potter series, according to Nielsen BookScan. Summit Entertainment has released two films, the second of which, “New Moon”, broke the American record for box-office sales in a single day. Harry Potter will not be easy to follow. But the boy wizard has lit the path.