JK Rowling Producer’s Profits Plummet; ‘Strike’ Renewal Confirmed After BBC Trans Apologies
EXCLUSIVE: JK Rowling’s production company Bront? Film and TV has posted a 74% drop in profits after Covid closed theatre performances of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.
Bront? Film and TV was established in 2012 as a vehicle through which to adapt Rowling’s work. She founded the company with her literary agent Neil Blair and is the majority shareholder.
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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. Bront? Film and TV’s revenue halved to ￡8.8M, according to a UK Companies House filing.
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.”
Bront?’s subsiduary, 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.
Bront? confirmed that it was adapting The Ink Black Heart for the BBC after Deadline revealed the plans earlier this month. It said production will begin later this year, with a premiere set for 2024.
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 British broadcaster is preparing the Strike renewal after apologizing twice to Rowling last month because guests on news shows accused her of being 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.”
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