Did you know that a version of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was going to be made
in Disney?
Let us tell you all about it!
In order to understand why this was not able to happen, we need to go back and examine
the rocky relationship between J.K.
Rowling and Disney.
Since Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone came out, the Harry Potter franchise was a
world phenomenon.
Every book that came out was a huge success and J.K.
Rowling was interested in taking this success and making it bigger by taking it to the big
screen.
This is why many companies, including Disney and Warner Brothers, were in the race for
the rights of the acclaimed saga.
And legend has it the entire negotiation between JK Rowling and Disney started with the left
foot.
This was because Disney has a very specific way of working and wants an absolute control
over the creativity and direction of the projects.
This form of business has proved extremely successful for them.
But, as many of us know, J.K.
Rowling is very protective of her characters and her story and she had some demands for
the companies that were interested.
First of all, she didn’t want the film to be an animated movie, she also wanted it to
be recorded in the UK with an exclusively British cast.
But the thing that made the agreement go south was that she wanted to have all the creative
control.
She would be in charge of choosing locations, the characters and cast, their motivations,
and she wanted to have the final approval of the script.
Kind of like P.L.
Travers wanted with Mary Poppins, but much less complicated.
Disney didn’t like this demands so they decided to not put out a great offer,
On the other hand, Warner Brothers decided, that this was a big bet and that the movies
were going to be a huge success.
After all, J.K.
Rowling had made Harry Potter what it was and she knew what was better for the franchise,
and as we all know now, they were right and Harry Potter became one of the most important
and influential franchises in the big screen as well.
Years passed and the success of the boy who lived continued and so, in 2004 Disney came
up with the idea of immortalizing the world of harry potter in their parks.
At that time, Michael Eisner was Disney’s CEO and Disney’s contract with Pixar was
about to end.
It’s no secret that Eisner and Steve Jobs who was the chief executive of Pixar Animation
Studios did not like each other that much.
And Eisner was thinking about not renewing it.
So he thought this new project would give imagineers the opportunity to work on new
attractions and shows, and it would give him the perfect excuse for not renewing their
contract with Pixar.
So Disney sent J.K.
Rowling a letter of intent and they started negotiations.
But just as it went with the rights of the film, the negotiations quickly became tense.
Rowling’s ideas were pretty much what we can see today in the Wizarding World of Harry
Potter in Universal Parks.
Her first demand was that she wanted a real-size Hogwarts castle inside the park, I mean come
on, what would be a Harry Potter park without it?
She also asked that none of her characters be walking around in the area.
So we wouldn’t have Harry greeting guests, or Hermione and Ron taking pictures.
And she wanted a large part of the sale of merchandise that was going to be sold in the
park.
And again, Disney was not happy with this demands.
They said they could not include the land inside the Magic Kingdom because Hogwarts
couldn’t be in the same park as Cinderella’s castle.
So they told J.K.
Rowling that the only way they would include her franchise in the park was to create a
small area as the Forbidden Forest inside Animal Kingdom and obviously this was not
what she was looking for.
Rumor has it that in one of the many meetings, things became so tense that JK Rowling left
the meeting very upset and instead of going straight back to the airport she went to Universal,
arrived at the front door, told them who she was and demanded to speak with the president.
In less than three days Universal had agreed to every demand and JK Rowling signed a letter
of intent.
And so they drew up the designs, had them approved and the amazing Wizarding World of
Harry Potter was on its way to becoming reality.
Now, Bob Iger, became The Walt Disney Company’s CEO and on his second day, he decided that
the smartest thing to do for the company was to invest all of their resources into buying
Pixar instead of building a new park and so he doubled the efforts to buy Pixar and offered
7.4 billion for the company that, amazingly, Steve Jobs accepted.
So this story ended up having a happy ending for both parties involved.
J.K.
Rowling ended up having the park that she always dreamed of having.
With all of her demands met and all the detail that the amazing world she created deserved.
And Disney wound up buying Pixar which was an amazing decision and the best bet they
could ever make.
They undoubtedly invested in one of the best alliances that have existed in the world of
animation
What do you guys think?
Would you want to have the forbidden forest inside Animal Kingdom or are you happy with
the way things are?
Let us know in the comments!