Who?
Now they’re erasing Rowling from her own damn work.
JK Rowling’s name has been downgraded in a trailer promoting the latest film of her Fantastic Beasts series amid a row over her views on trans identification.
Unlike previous adverts for the franchise, Rowling’s name barely features in the two-and-a-half-minute trailer for the third instalment, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which is out next year.
The new trailer opens with the caption “Warner Bros invites you” while the 2018 film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald said “JK Rowling invites you” and credited her with writing and producing the film.
It is only at the end of the new trailer that a small publishing rights note bearing Rowling’s name appears.
Yes yes yes but Trans Women Are The Most Vulnerable so shut up.
Is there anything that Rowling can do about this?
Is there anything that we can do about it?
Probably not, such decisions are largely up to the producing company unless there was some stipulation in the contract demanding such things as prominent display of her name. Which sounds unlike JKR.
So basically they plan to continue making money off her writing, without acknowledging except as an afterthought,
I will have to say, though, that I have been seeing this in cases where there is no TERF accusation. Most of the plays I go to lately do not have the playwright’s name on the program.This has only been within the past couple of years (well, right before pandemic shutdowns). I am continually being informed by people much younger than me that a work of art does not belong to the creator but to the public. A play, they will say with huffy arrogance, is not the playwright’s, it is a collaborative effort between a lot of people. True, but then why are all the other people listed, but not the playwright? Those people standing on the stage got the words they are saying from somewhere.
The main exception is Shakespeare. I still see his name on plays in spite of the fact that he is long dead. Or any other well known playwright if they think the name will be a draw to bring people to the theatre. So my question is, how does your name become well known if it is not put on the program?
“I am continually being informed by people much younger than me that a work of art does not belong to the creator but to the public.”
Ah, yes. It’s what the reader thinks (as they read the text) that is the real act of creation. What the author wrote is secondary to the authority of the reader. This is also why criticism is much more important and valued than mere authorship.
This is precisely why critics get tens of millions of dollars for the movie and television rights to their analyses of the works of mere authors.
lol
Mind you, vanishingly few authors get big bucks for movie and tv rights.
“Did you hear about the actress who was so dumb, she slept with a writer?”
— a joke in Hollywood
And they also usually lose all creative control over the work. Once the movies have their mitts on it, they can rewrite it but leave the author’s name on it. If there is only a single line left of the original thing, so what? It’s what movie goers want!
Selling a movie script is a sure way to get screwed.
Well, she’s the scriptwriter for the first two movies in the series, and a co-writer for this third movie. Her agreement is for five films in this series. She’s also an executive producer, so I don’t know nor understand how this decision is made. Probably some mamby pamby upper level exec at Warner Bros. who doesn’t want a Netflix like demonstration outside the offices.
This article published yesterday surprised me with how much control Rowling still has over the Harry Potter franchise:
Well that’s delightful news.