Filling The Pages

James Bond has starred in 22 films over  47 years of filming starting back in 1962 with Dr. No starring the dashing Mr. Connery as Agent 007.

Harry Potter’s first film was in 2001. A mere eight years ago, with only five (soon to be six) movies released, and yet it has (or is about to) make MORE MONEY than the man with a license to kill! Who ever thought that was possible?

This is just my own guess, but I’d say that the James Bond film franchise is one of the most famous film series out there. It’s definitely up there with Mission Impossible, Die Hard, even The Godfather; and it has more movies than those three combined; so it’s simple math. How could a franchise with six films beat one with 22?! Well it has, and I’m amazed.

What I think it really says is something about who is going to the cinema these days. The James Bond target audience probably starts with early teens, especially boys who like to see things blown up, but it’s range goes through adults and was certainly more focused on it’s older audience back in the day when Mr. Connery was playing the dashing agent.

Harry Potter does appeal to adults who like to relive a little childhood fun and magic, but it’s main appeal is to the younger generations. It appeals to males and females too, unlike Bond’s action packed sequences and cool cars that typically appeal to members of the public with a Y chromosome.

So I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re a person looking to make the next blockbuster, look no further than Generations Y and Z because apparently they’re the ones lining up at the box office multiple times, and they’ll probably bring their parents along for the ride.

BY the way. Back to James Bond. Agent 007 is supposed to be this handsome, ever so polite, refined ENGLISH gentleman right? I know a lot of people were up in arms when Daniel Craig was announced as the new Bond because his look was too ‘rugged’ or something like that. But at least he’s from the right country! He’s only the SECOND English person to play the big man. Even the first Bond was Scottish! He was interrupted by an Australian (George Lazenby… it’s okay if you forgot about him, most people do since he was only in one film, and Connery did one more after him, making him even easier to disregard). It wasn’t until the third James Bond (Roger Moore) that we actually got an Englishman, and he was followed by a Welshman and an Irishman!

Secondly, why is it that he’s supposed to be English anyway? If you actually look into it (or just read this blog since I already did this for you), James Bond’s dad is Scottish and his mum is from Switzerland!

This is all off the topic of Harry Potter, but it’s interesting. At least I think so.

So here’s to Harry Potter, beating 007′s record in about one quarter the amount of episodes. Also – I have a ticket to go see the sixth film with my parents after which I will be driving straight to the airport to fly back to London. See I told you – a Generation Y child hiking up those box offices sales and bringing her parents to help too.