Harry Potter vs. Twilight

Now that Harry Potter has wrapped up, we compare this franchise with the Twilight saga, and it wasn’t even close.

 

Harry Potter vs. Twilight

 

Round 1: Hero Worship

 

Harry Potter’s franchise title says it all. The boy who lived has sparked a phenomenon of fanatics that people can look up to in their nerdish ways. But even in his weakest moments, the story ropes in his most trusted allies for the job. In Twilight, the real heroes are the vampires, but with Bella as the main character, the least she can do is make a decision or be put in a stressful situation where lives are at stake.

 

Winner: Harry Potter. We also like to give honorable mention to the supporting characters as well.

 

Round 2: Critic Reception

 

Harry Potter’s film adaptations began in 2001. Since then, it has always been a critic-approved franchise. On Rotten Tomatoes, each movie has been certified Fresh, with the two lowest near the upper 70s. The Twilight Saga is the exact opposite, with New Moon taking a beating from critics that usually hate films that only please mainstream culture. However, Eclipse did make improvement, becoming the series’ highest mark at 50%. This information ought to inspire screenwriters for the last two films.

 

Winner: Harry Potter, with an average rating of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

Round 3: Supporting Cast

 

Like we said back in round 1, even our heroes need a cushion to fall on. The Twilight Saga has a backup plan for vampires with werewolves, who came to Bella’s safety against Victoria. But outside that battle, the producers have confused us on whether they truly have this war between them or not. Not even Bella’s human friends can help, let alone get more airtime on the regular basis. In Harry Potter, he has a whole school behind him, even Severus Snape. He even formed an army and named it “Dumbledore’s Army”. Moreso, they came through when he couldn’t. Like in Deathly Hallows Part II, where Neville slayed the snake.

 

Winner: Harry Potter’s allies win, while Twilight should be thankful that Anna Kendrick got nominated for an Oscar outside the franchise.

 

Round 4: Romance

 

Harry Potter established a number of relationships over time with Ron and Hermoine, Harry and his best friend’s sister Ginny, and whatever masculine guy wizard Dumbledore fell in love with off-script. The problem with Potter in here is that it wasn’t too serious on love and kept everyone wondering. Twilight was a full-fledged romance novel, making fans prior to the films. The reason why Twilight works here is that it was something for hopeless romantics.

 

Winner: Say what you will, but Twilight does make their marketing strategy pay off.

 

Round 5: Novels

 

Both Harry Potter and Twilight came from successful book series, so we observed what each timeline was and was it followed right. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling made controversy with keeping readers on edge with how she will end everything, but she managed to not rub anyone off and the films stayed true to the timeline. Referring back to round 2, Twilight films weren’t loved by critics. The main problems, other than its cheesy appeal is that they rarely follow the timeline of each book, leaving parts of the book out that might have been better than what made the final cut.

 

Winner: Harry Potter. Stephenie Meyer has one person to thank for this defeat: the person who leaked what would have been the final book.

 

Round 6: Usage of Robert Pattinson

 

While the books have a lot in common with each other, the films have one true link between one another: Robert Pattinson. Harry Potter first had him first as Cedric Diggory long before there was a Twilight film franchise and around the same time that its book franchise had begun. Three years later, Twilight roped him in and became teenage girls’ dream husband everywhere, glitter and all. Part of it is all J.K. Rowling’s fault. If she didn’t make the producers kill Cedric off, we wouldn’t be comparing these two franchises today.

 

Winner: Twilight for making his character dead and undead at the same time for the whole time, while in Potter, he was one and done.

 

Round 7: Directorial Guidance

 

Harry Potter had a number of directors during the eight-film timeline. The first two were directed by Home Alone director Chris Columbus, then handed it off to Alfonso Cuaron for what could be the best Potter film: The Prisoner of Azkaban. For #4, the director was Mike Newell, but for the second half of the franchise, David Yates took the reigns and stayed on board for the rest of the time, making the series even better. With Twilight, they had different directors for every book. They didn’t even have a static producer like Potter’s David Heyman.

 

Winner: Harry Potter, thanks to finding a director that works late in the game.

 

Round 8: Box Office

 

Harry Potter doesn’t even make a contest. The first one grossed over $310 million in America and was until now the best grossing here. Potter’s only low grosser was #3, despite a great man directing it. But once they found what they were looking for, each film topped itself. While no movie grossed more than $400 million in America, several of its films grossed over a billion worldwide. Currently, Deathly Hallows Part 2 became the best weekend opening ever with its early availability. While it suffered afterwards, with competition every week like Captain America, Rise of the Apes, and some movie with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, it kept a good pace. It outgrossed the first movie and could outgross Transformers 3 by the time you read this.

 

Winner: Harry Potter wins so majorly that Breaking Dawn’s two-part finale has lots of ground to make up.

 

Final Round: Impact

 

After reviewing each round up to now, we examine overall performance. This Twilight vs. Harry Potter matchup can be similar to a boy band rivalry, with Harry is to Twilight as Backstreet Boys are to NSYNC. In other words, Twilight creates a much publicized frenzy, but Harry’s legacy will last longer afterwards.

 

Winner: Harry Potter. But all bets are off once The Hobbit is released.