Beedle The Bard News Roundup
A lot has been going on since Beedle came out last week. Here’s what we’ve got:
- Cinemablend.com reports that there is a possibility that Warner Brothers is looking into turning The
Tales of Beedle the Bard into a movie. Could be interesting, but I don’t see it happening. - The Telegraph has reported that Beedle has become the fastest selling book of 2008:” It has sold almost five times as many copies in its first few days after publication as its nearest rival, Guinness World Records 2008.
The success of the 109-page collection of short stories, which Rowling did not originally intend for publication, underlines the powerful hold she continues to exert over readers – and the book industry.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard – mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the latest book in wizard boy series – sold 367,625 copies in the first three days after publication on December 4.” - Beedle the Bard has taken the Number One spot on USA Today’s Best Seller List
All of these news items are exciting to hear. Once again, these pieces of news beckon us to ask how a brand new complete book or series by JK Rowling would fair. I think we can assume, pretty well.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Beedle is certainly making impressions, although I’ve heard that some people think it’s just a JKR-can-pop-out-a-new-book-in-2-minutes-for-a-few-extra-millions thing, unaware of the charitable donations, or of it’s integrity as a book.
But I think a new book by JKR would definitely fare pretty well, given her well-established reader base. (Even Harry, A History did good, and that’s non-fiction!) What I am more interested in is how she would adapt to a new genre; I assume anything done by her not in the HP world would be separate from the fantasy, teenager type. We have yet to see JKR do anything with “muggles.” I would certainly buy it, but I think people might be a bit more cautious with it. I don’t know if new readers would find future JKR novels as interesting. I also wonder how long it would take her to fall in love with a new idea.
As for the movie: they’re just asking for trouble. I’d prefer a 90-minute magical creatures tour with Hagrid.
December 11th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I like the idea of a movie, although it probably won’t happen we’ll have something to look forward to after Deathly Hallows part 2 is released. If they do make a movie I’m sure the proceeds won’t go to charity, unless Jo forces them to do so, which would result in WB losing interest and the movie having a really low budget.