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I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors...

Kim Hollis: *Blasphemous conversation alert* Twilight has just opened higher than any Harry Potter film to date. Is it fair to say that Twilight has caught or maybe even (temporarily?) surpassed the Potter franchise in terms of current pop culture popularity?

Josh Spiegel: In some ways, Twilight would always have a stronger hold on pop culture than Harry Potter because of the main audience it appeals to: teenagers, specifically teenage girls. That group is one of the big reasons, if not the biggest, that Titanic is the highest-grossing film ever. If there's a hard enough push to something, that something can benefit from the crazed fandom of these teens. I would argue that, when people look back on the series, Harry Potter will have grabbed popular culture in a stronger fashion, if only because the series is more accessible, in movie or book form, and not something that could be seen as something for squeeing young fangirls.

Kim Hollis: Long-term, I think that Potter will appeal to all ages and have a more timeless element to it. Twilight is a little bit more grounded in the 2000s, and as such I do think it will fall off at some point down the line. Years from now, the people who were teens will remember it fondly, but it will be the Potter books that they'll be happily sharing with their children (partly because they'll probably be a little uncomfortable recalling how ooshy that vampire and that werewolf made them feel).





Sean Collier: "Current?" Sure. The Potter books are done, and the movies are winding down. But in the long-term, Potter will be seen as more of a force. Those books not only dominated pop culture for nearly a decade, they had a profound impact on the tastes and reading habits of a generation of kids, and helped to steer the course of cinema for a few years to boot. Twilight is a very popular fad and nothing more.

Reagen Sulewski: It's possible that I'm the wrong guy to ask here, as I've never really appreciated Harry Potter all that much. But even as a non-fan, I see its greater quality loud and clear. I mean, find me one critic out there that thinks Twilight is a better series. I don't think Potter fans have anything to worry about in the long term.

Jim Van Nest: I think it's all about the target audience. One of the things JK Rowling did so masterfully was she wrote her books to a different audience. The first book, Harry was 10...and the book was written for a 10 year old to read. As Harry got older, the books were written "older". What this did, however, was skew Potter's audience much younger than Twilight's audience. Overall, the quality of Potter will outshine Twilight and when it comes time...if they were to put Deathly Hallows, Part 2 up against Breaking Dawn, I think Potter would win out. Well...I would hope Potter would win out.

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