Well, I just recently went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. While it was an amazing movie, the movie itself is not the purpose of this blog, but rather the significance the end of this franchise brings.
I would argue that the past 10 years or so, starting back in 1999, has been the greatest time period ever for fantasy movie franchises. The three big fantasy movie franchises that were all released in the recent past range in release date from 1999 to 2011. (see the list below)
Star Wars: Phantom Menace, 1999
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, 2002
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, 2005
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001
Lord of the Rings: The Twin towers, 2002
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003
Harry Potter: Philosophers Stone, 2001
Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets, 2002
Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban, 2004
Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire, 2005
Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix, 2007
Harry Potter: Half Blood Prince, 2009
Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Pt 1, 2010
Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Pt 2, 2011
I would argue that all 14 of these movies would be in any top 50 list of all time Fantasy films, maybe even top 25, and are easily the three best fantasy movie franchises ever. For all of them to have come around the same time is remarkable. After seeing the closing credits for Deathly Hallows Pt 2, I found myself for the first time in over 10 years not really having a particular future movie release that I was excited for. With the end of the last Harry Potter movie, I believe this truly represents the end of a great era. It may be quite a long time before we see movies like this again. So far I see a slew of mediocre to bad super-hero movies and, other than The Hobbit (2012), which is just really the precursor to the Lord of the Rings, there isn't too much or the Horizon, from this genre anyway, that I am excited for.
So is this a sad day? Or should we be expecting the next great film franchise to unexpectedly surprise us in the near future? Or maybe there are upcoming movies in the works that I do not know about and some of you do?