Vampires have nothing on wizards

Hakim Muhammad-Yusuf
Contributor
Comparing Harry Potter to Twilight is just unfair. Even though they may both be fantasy tales, Harry Potter is pure adventure, while Twilight is romance with a sprinkle of action.
Why is this relevant? When it comes to the topic of popularity, there is no comparison between the two: Harry Potter is the clear winner.
Harry has been a big part of popular culture for more than 10 years since the first book was released June 30, 1997 in the UK while the first Twilight book came out in 2005, almost six years ago.

Twilight is popular among its target demographic but, due to the nature of the material, cannot transcend it. Harry Potter, on the other hand, can be read and be enjoyed by people of all ages. Boys can read it without being ridiculed, and girls can enjoy it without feeling left out.
Like I said, a comparison of popularity is incredibly unfair to Twilight because Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon, and with the final instalment of the series currently holding the record for fastest selling book in history, it looks unlikely that Twilight will ever reach Harry Potter’s level.
If we look to the movies’ sales, the Twilight franchise has grossed $1.8 billion so far while Harry Potter is around $8 billion at the moment.  To be fair, there are more movies in the Harry Potter series, and the final Twilight hasn’t been released yet, but the first Harry Potter movie The Philosophers Stone grossed $317.6 million in the US box office while Twilight, the first movie, grossed $191.4 million, showing a pretty substantial difference in box office success between the two franchises.
Besides financial success, the Potter books and movies are also critically acclaimed, with five of the seven movies receiving Academy award nominations. The Twilight books and movies on the other hand tend to garner mixed and even negative reviews as in the case of New Moon.
I’ll admit that the Twilight franchise is a pretty big deal by any movie standards, seeing as it has made household names of its stars. It is an important part of the lives of its fans and it is also a very lucrative business for its creator and all the various corporate entities involved in its merchandising. But the point is that it cannot hold a candle to Harry Potter.
In the argument of who is more popular, I think judging from book sales, acclaim, and movie tickets it is easy to see that the vampires are no match for the wizards of Hogwarts.  Despite the in-your-face nature of Twilight fans and its domination of events like the MTV Movie Awards and the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, I think the debate on who takes the cake is clear cut.