To the dismay of fantasy film-lovers the world over, both the Harry Potter franchise and the Twilight saga are now finished.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt2 came out in 2011, with the pint-size wizard and his motley crew of magical folk bidding audiences their final goodbye. Twilight Breaking Dawn pt2 was released a year later and, for many, it was the end of an era.
Each of these films was, in its own right, a creative success. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt2 is a compelling conclusion to the saga’s eight movies, which began back in 2001 with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. In the final installment, Harry, along with friends Hermione and Ron, Hagrid and many more, must undo Voldemort’s immortality and defeat his evil in an epic Hogwarts showdown.
A year later twilight fans turned up at the cinema to find out how Twilight characters Bella and Edward would end their own story. This was a totally different proposition. The film opens with vampire Bella, who has just given birth to a very special baby, Renesmee. This baby brings instant danger to the Cullens from the Volturi, who are intent on killing the family once and for all. There have been rumours that Twilight may return, but that remains to be seen.
So, which of these two fantasy films could be said to have been the most successful? In terms of overall box office success, Harry Potter wins the day. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 2 was, staggeringly, the 7th highest all-time box office ranking film. Its Twilight rival, meanwhile came in at 45th place. In terms of gross box office figures, this translates as $1.34 billion to Harry Potter and a significantly less impressive $829.7 million to Twilight. For the Twilight film, this figure was in the same ballpark as those enjoyed by earlier films in the franchise. By contrast, the box office statistics of the Harry Potter films were much more variable.
As well as looking at the individual successes of the films, indices trading company IG know, it’s important to consider the impact movies have on the fortunes of their studios more widely. The studios that released the two movies were Lionsgate for Twilight Breaking Dawn pt2 and Time Warner for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt2.
For Lionsgate, Twilight Breaking Dawn pt2, boosted share price performance by a huge 95.6% and caused a seven-day share price rise of 4%. For Time Warner, these figures were more modest – 11.9% and 0.9% respectively. However, when you look at the two studios’ market caps, it’s clear to see that Time Warner emerges as a clear winner. Its market cap was $35.8 billion to Lionsgate’s $5.37 billion. Despite this, whichever film you prefer as a creative endeavor, and however you choose to look at the statistics, both films were fantastic finales to excellent franchises.
