In a piece in The New York Times on Oscar nominees in the lower-profile categories, the production designer of the Harry Potter series makes this assertion:
I seem to remember that the films were designed to be a series right from the start. There were several Harry Potter books out by the time the first movie came out. Wouldn't someone have informed the production designer that this was the first of a series?

Or am I misremembering it? Did they only decide to do more films after the success of the first? Or, on the other hand, did the producers simply not tell their key production personnel their future plans? (Wouldn't be the first time that happened.)

Anyone?






Here's a link to the whole article, if anyone's interested:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/mo...r=1&ref=movies

I think the answer is easy:

First movie bombs = no more movies.

First movie is a massive success = what we got.

Planning out a series of films is easy, but ensuring they're successful and can maintain the audience throughout is never guaranteed. Sure, the books sold insane numbers, but if that didn't translate over to the first film, we wouldn't have gotten any more. Or they'd be done like the Narnia series, which is barely limping along.

Weren't they already filming the second one before the first one was released? It seems like we would have at least gotten two no matter what.

Given how popular the books already were when the first movie got released and the hype, I think it would have been a safe assertion they were at least planning to do the second one.

i.e. The Golden Compass

ie Lemony Snicket's

Though obviously Potter is a huge series compared to Lewis, Pullman, Snicket, etc.

Nope, they started production on the second one just after the first film premiered, like 3 days later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_P...lm)#Production

They always commissioned the next screenplay before the current film premiered, and they may have done preproduction before as well, but Warner always delayed the production until after the last film, in case the bottom fell out of the series. It was only the last two films (consisting of two parts of one novel) where they were shooting two before the first came out.

Snicket was a pretty big seller in book form. There's no reason those films couldn't have been a multi-film franchise.

Other films that could've potentially been series:

The Seeker (Dark is Rising series)
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief


The Chronicles of Narnia has had a rocky film development as a series. The next one, if there is a next one, won't be made until after 2014.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chr...series)#Future

I think he was just trying to be humble. But obviously if the first one was a disaster they would have stopped.

Producers can tell when there's set-in-stone gold like Harry Potter. By post-production, I'm sure they knew they had a hit.

The Golden Compass and Lemony Snicket wasn't as immediately and guaranteed likeable they way Harry Potter was.