After nearly 15 years, it's "hasta la vista" to Hogwarts, quitting time for Quidditch.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" opens in theaters Friday; it's the final chapter of the saga of a bespectacled boy wizard that became a global cultural sensation.
And like all the chapters preceding it seven movies, based on seven books "Deathly Hallows: Part 2" will be big news ... and big business.
More than 11,000 movie screens, in nearly 4,400 locations — including 3,800 that did midnight screenings — according to Warner Bros. Pictures, distributor of the movie franchise. More than $32 million in advance ticket sales, a lucrative omen for the last entry in a franchise that has grossed more than $2 billion in the United States alone.
It's an exclamation point on a phenomenon that didn't start when the "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" first appeared in theaters in 2001, but when it first appeared on U.S. bookshelves three years earlier.
"I think it's one of those universal things, like 'The Wizard of Oz,'" says John Georghiu, director of the Plattekill Public Library. "I haven't seen anything like it, since those classics."
"A lot of these Harry Potter children are now Harry Potter adults," says Matthew Pfisterer, director of Thrall Library in Middletown
"It's been generational," says Bridget Manigo, Thrall's head of youth services.
And multigenerational. Manigo says the Potter books are one of the few that are in all three of the library's collections: juvenile, young adults and adults. "That's what makes it so amazing," she says. "This series is for the serious reader; it kind of crosses the lines of age."
Manigo hasn't seen all the Potter movies, but of the ones she's seen, she's impressed how faithful they've remained to the books. "The movies were really in line with what I've imagined with the books," she says. "Some people who weren't into the books said, 'I love the movies, they were action-packed.' And the kids, they can actually compare the movies to the books; it's not like they're completely different."
But after years of libraries replacing worn-out copies of books, to viewing parties with folks dressed in their Hogwarts best, we've reached the end. And after folks watch the final battle with Lord Voldemort on the big screen — multiple times, no doubt — and discover the fate of Harry, Hermione and Ron, what's left?
Well, there's always Universal Studios in Florida, which opened a Harry Potter theme park last month. Maybe series author J.K. Rowling eventually decides she needs another billion dollars and creates new adventures.
But Manigo can think of no better legacy than the generation that grew up with Harry Potter going out and creating a Potter-like phenomenon of their own.
"Hopefully, some of these readers will become writers and do the same things," Manigo said.
