J. K. Rowling’s production company, Brontë Film and TV has reported a 74% profit decline.
The author established the company in 2012 with her literary agent Neil Blair which mainly focuses on adaptations of her work.
As reported by Deadline, “Brontë Film and TV has posted a 74% drop in profits after Covid closed theatre performances of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.”
“The outfit’s pre-tax profit was £1.8M ($2.2M) in the 12 months to March 2022, compared with £6.9M over the same period the year before. Brontë Film and TV’s revenue halved to £8.8M, according to a UK Companies House filing.”
Rowling herself is the majority shareholder. The company’s earnings report blamed, “lower income streams and profit shares from theatrical productions which were closed for a large part of the [financial] period due to Covid restrictions.”
The company has insisted that its profits have plummeted due to Covid-19, during which the entire world went into back-to-back lockdowns for a considerable amount of time in 2020 and didn’t allow people to come to the theatres to watch Harry Potter and The Cursed Child.
“Brontë’s subsidiary, Harry Potter Theatrical Productions, reported revenue of £3.5M, which was down £6.6M, or 65%, compared with 2021. Its pre-tax profit fell 84% to £1.1M.”
The company is also adapting The Ink Black Heart for BBC, and the production will expectedly start in the second half of the year.
“The Ink Black Heart is penned under Rowling’s pseudonym Robert Galbraith and will become Season 6 of Strike, which has performed well for the BBC. It chronicles cases investigated by Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke), a war veteran turned private detective, and his business partner Robin Ellacott (Holliday Grainger).”
The news of the Strike renewal came after the British broadcaster apologized twice from J.K. after guests on news shows called her transphobic.
“The shows failed to properly challenge the views of transgender women who said they were boycotting the Harry Potter video game Hogwarts Legacy because Rowling is “anti-trans.” The BBC said the discussions, broadcast on Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland, fell below “rigorous editorial standards.” Per Deadline.
No matter what reasons have been given by the production company for the massive decline in its profits, many people believe that this entire tanking situation of Bronte is because of Rowling’s anti-trans remarks.
The 57-year-old writer came under fire in 2020 after making transphobic comments on Twitter, triggering the trans community and its supporters.
Since then, she has been under waves of criticism on and off.
According to PEOPLE, “Though she denied that her views on feminism are transphobic, she doubled down on her controversial standpoints in a lengthy essay shared on her website days later.”
Many actors, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, called out Rowling for her anti-trans views.
Sharing his opinion on Rowling’s views, the Harry Potter lead star, Daniel Radcliffe, said he decided to speak against her because this is an important issue and trans people already suffer a lot.
“I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that,” he told IndieWire.
Reacting to the news of her production company going through a terrible financial crisis, many supporters of the trans community said she deserved it.
“Ah, the market has spoken!” one wrote.
“may it drop further,” another said.
“That’s nothing. Linehan lost 66.6% of his family,” a third added.
“but surely all the women she claims to be speaking for are buying her stuff?” a fourth asked.
“Guess she’s not sleeping so well now,” said another.
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Sources: Deadline
