Submitted by PHILLIP (Apr 25, 2008)

do you think fantasy plays an important roll in our lives?

>Would it have been as popular without the cinematic brilliance of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies?< I cannot argue on Tolkien's impact on Fantasy in general, but I am very sure that Peter Jackson's films had nothing to do with Harry Potter's success. By 2001, when 'The Fellowship of the Ring' came to the cinemas, J.K. Rowling had been on bestseller lists for several years. Unlike many other stories, where the movie introduces the book to all those people who have never heard of it before, Harry Potter already was a worldwide bestseller before it was turned into a movie. Already when the fourth book was published in 2000 there was a huge hype, there were midnight sales, huge piles of books in every bookshop, interviews; everyone knew the name Harry Potter. So by the time the first Harry Potter movie hit the theatres (a week after 'The Fellowship of the Rings', as far as I remember) Harry Potter was already extremely popular. Peter Jackson didn't have anything to do with it.