It’s the biggest blockbuster event of the summer – the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. What is it about Harry Potter anyway?

(from PostSecret)

I think it’s the integration of magic and everyday teenage life. The magic gives us spells, evil wizards, curses… and lots of special effects. Teenage life gives us relatable coming-of-age issues like identity, family, and managing love and school.

In our Movie Genome, this is represented by a combined search for “fantasy” and “teenage life” or “coming of age.” The results underscore the popularity of combining fantasy and teenage worlds.

Warning: Spoilers ahead…

10. Twilight (2008)

If you somehow failed to hear about the Twilight books and big-screen hype, you could watch almost half the movie without realizing it’s a fantasy. The look is realistic, and the feel is of a regular falling-in-love story between Edward and Bella, two socially awkward teens with goth tendencies. Of course, Edward is actually a vampire, though a “vegetarian” one - which makes things difficult for the young lovers and justifies them staring meaningfully into each other’s eyes for most of the film.

Like it or not, this is the greatest example of the last year for how popular teenage life and fantasy can be together.

9. Tin Man (2007)

This fascinating 6-hour miniseries takes the story of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to a whole new level. With much more focus on fantasy and sci-fi elements, along with deep character psychology, the story deals with DG, a teenage girl who feels out of place in her life.

Sounds typical? Well, imagine what happens when DG and her typical teenage problems are thrown into a world of wizards, strange torture methods, and robots who were apparently DG’s parents the whole time…

This was the highest rated miniseries of 2007, and was nominated for 9 Emmy awards.

8. The Incredibles (2004)

True, The Incredibles is really more focused on family life than teen life. But there is one character who uses her special powers in the regular teen world in such an endearing way, that I couldn’t resist including her.

I’m talking, of course, about Violet, the teenage daughter of the Parr/Incredible family. As a teenager, she is a shy social outsider. She uses her superhuman skills – especially the invisibility one – to hide from a boy she has a crush on. How incredibly teenage-like!

Through the movie, Violet gains control of her powers – and thus self-confidence. When she returns to school she doesn’t hide anymore, for her adventures in the film have also been a coming-of-age journey.

7. Smallville (2001 ongoing)

This successful TV series (9 seasons so far and still going) is the classic example of regular teenage life combined with fantasy – the beloved character Superman.

Set when Clark Kent (aka Superman) and his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor were still just teenagers, the series ranges from Clark battling villains that aim to destroy Smallville to his school experience, friends and one of the biggest issues of the series: coming to terms with his alien origins.

The pilot episode of the series was extremely successful and broke the rating records for The WB network with over 8.4 million viewers.

6. The Golden Compass (2007)

Lyra is a 12-year-old orphan, a smart, somewhat rowdy tomboy. Most of her time is spent playing with her friends or telling creepy stories - but Lyra actually lives in a fantastic world, parallel to ours, in which there are witches, armored bears and daemons.

Through the movie, Lyra comes of age, starting with adoring her elegant female relative and trying to simulate her, and ending with the realization that not everything beautiful is good.

Unfortunately the movie was not very successful financially, and in the US it actually flopped. Fans of the books felt the movie fails to capture its complexity. But Lyra’s character is one of the stronger aspects of the movie, and is very interesting to watch.

5. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

Oh, the troubles the three Baudelaire kids face! Teenagers Violet and Klaus and their baby sister Sunny have been orphaned. Their evil relative Count Olaf receives custody over them, but he is only after the family fortune and constantly tries to kill them…

The siblings are launched on a strange, magnificent journey, in which they try simultaneously to take care of each other, find out the truth about their parents’ death, and always keep one step ahead from the evil count.

Visually stunning and wickedly funny, this film really takes advantage of the fantastic world as a vehicle to depict real-life troubles.

4. Merlin (2008 ongoing)

Merlin is a relatively new BBC series based (loosely) on Arthurian legends and myths. What differentiates it from countless other movies, TV shows, books and plays on the topic is the focus on Merlin and Arthur as teenagers.

In the first episode, Arthur, the “king of the class,” bullies nerdy Merlin.
Merlin, on his part, is busy flaunting his magical talents to his friends and keeping them secret from the adults.

At some points it feels like Freaks and Geeks set in medieval times. But of course there’s a strong fantasy element, with dragons, knights and plenty of spells.

The show was very successful and a second series was commissioned by BBC. Once again, the teenage-fantasy combination proved its worth.

3. Coraline (2009)

This film differs from other in this list in that 11-year-old Coraline Jones is not a teenager, rather a tween. But Coraline is already dealing with many coming-of-age issues. She movies to a new town, her parents have hardly any time for her, and there’s no one her age except a weird boy wearing a metallic scull mask…

This movie is real eye-candy. The stop motion animation is beautiful, similar to The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride only more colorful and fantastic-looking. And the way Coraline’s everyday world integrates with the fantastic one really gets the best of both worlds.

2. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

Of all the teenage-magic combinations, this is the most similar to Harry Potter (the earlier movies). Kiki is a 13-year-old apprentice witch who, as part of her training, must leave her home town and family. Accompanied by her talking cat and second-hand flying broom, Kiki sets off for her adventure.

As the story develops it becomes clear that Kiki’s journey is also a coming-of-age process. In order to fully complete this year of training, she must discover her special skills, learn how to take responsibility, and recognize the value of money and hard work.

Kiki represents the magical side, whereas the city she lands in is completely “ordinary” magic-free. Kiki needs to convince everyone she can do good with her powers, while also dealing with regular teenage issues like boyfriends and having nothing to wear to parties…

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

The 6th book brings Harry’s teenage life and magical life to a climax. Harry finally experiences truly falling in love, while Ron and Hermione move between jealousy, anger and affection. (Check out this overview from the cast on ReelzChannel.) It’s not easy being a teenager while the entire world around you crumbles, and you’re supposed to save it!

So will Harry Potter be the biggest hit of summer 2009? Will it top Transformers? Comment and let us know what you think!

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Magical * Based on a Book * Wizards and Magicians * Teenage Life * Curses, Spells and Rituals * Coming of Age * High School Life * Fantasy * Fall in Love * Socially Awkward * Vampire * Mini Series * Androids and Robots * Good vs. Evil * Hit TV Series * Superhuman Powers * Family Life * Journey * Orphan * Witch * Talking Animals * Boyfriend * Stylish * Stop Motion * Anime * Legends and Myths

Technorati Tags: movie, film, Movie Genome, Harry Potter, HP6, HBP, Half Blood Prince, fantasy, teenage life, coming of age

Popularity: 6% [?]

It seems likely that in an economic downturn, we’ll buy fewer theater tickets. Instead, we’ll rent more DVDs and continue to watch more online, free as well as pay-to-stream or pay-to-download. We expect that smarter tools for choosing what to watch will be especially important in huge DVD and online catalogues.

But what will we watch? These kinds of things are hard to predict, but here are a few highlights of what Americans enjoyed during hard economic times in the past.

1929: Stock markets crashed worldwide and the U.S. entered the Great Depression.
Top-grossing movie (courtesy of The Numbers): The Broadway Melody

The Broadway Melody had many firsts: MGM’s first musical film, one of the first musicals with a color sequence, and the first sound film to win Best Picture at the Oscars. A backstage show biz love triangle starring two sisters, it’s a light melodrama with plenty of Broadway clichés.

1973: Quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC alongside government spending on the Vietnam War led to stagflation.
Top-grossing movie: The Exorcist

What are those noises in the attic? A young girl is possessed and her desperate mother enlists the help of two priests to exorcise the demon… Very graphic for its time, it was dismissed by Rolling Stone as “nothing more than a religious porn film” – but terrified audiences made it one of the top-grossing horror films of all time.

1987: Black Monday (October 19 1987) was the largest one-day percentage decline in stock market history.
Top-grossing movie: 3 Men and a Baby

Three bachelors find themselves forced to take care of a baby left by one of their girlfriends. With the tagline “They changed her diapers. She changed their lives,” this goofy, feel-good movie was a big hit.

1990: The early 90s recession began as industrial production and manufacturing-trade sales fell off.
Top-grossing movie: Home Alone

An eight year-old is accidentally left behind when his family leaves for Christmas vacation, and has to defend his home against bumbling burglars. A feel-good family classic. Those who remember the early 90s recession also remember Macaulay Culkin back when he was young and cute.

2001: The collapse of the Dot com bubble, along with 9/11 and corporate scandal, led to economic contraction.
Top-grossing movie: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The first movie about the boy magician, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the fight against Voldemort and the forces of evil. The books became an international obsession among children and adults alike, and the movies stuck close to the original stories and rode the wave to box office success.

There are some notably similar themes among these hits, based on our Movie Genome.

Young heroes * In danger * Feel good * Goofy heroes * Good vs. evil * Sibling relations * Friendship * Lighthearted * Supernatural ability * Mother and daughter
- Inspired? You can search any or several of these on Jinni.

What’s your favorite in this list? And what types of movies do you predict people will choose in the current financial crisis?

Popularity: 10% [?]