The Data Analytics of Harry Potter

Author: Amanda Brandon
Spotfire Blogging Team

Early this morning fanatic fans bared witness to the end of an institution at the midnight premiere of the final movie in the Harry Potter blockbuster series. In celebration of this event, we thought it would be fun to explore the data analytics of Harry Potter for all you “data wizards.”

But first, so you don’t feel left out of that late night frenzy check out this amateur video taken while waiting in line at a theater.

Rowling Could Have Used Visual Analytics

In this handwritten spreadsheet, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling maps out her plot for the fifth book in the series The Order of the Phoenix. We found this map on a film blog, and you have to blow it up to see the detail for which she visualizes the story.

As we said on Twitter earlier this week, TIBCO Spotfire could have been to Rowling what the Maurader’s Map was to Harry Potter.

Fun Data Fact

The Harry Potter series holds the world record for the fastest selling book of fiction in 24 hours.

Into the Pensieve with Data

This awesome infographic “Harry Potter and the Multi-Billion Dollar Empire,” courtesy of PiercedbyaLance.com showcases some of the key data the most successful movie/book franchise of all time.

Some of the analytics:

Harry Potter novels are available in 69 languages.
More than a dozen colleges and universities actually have courses related to Harry Potter including Oregon State’s “Find Your Patronus” and Yale’s “Christian Theology and Harry Potter.”
At the time of this post, Rowling (@jk_rowling) has 550,561 Twitter followers and just 7 tweets.

Box Office Prince

This infographic found on the newly launched Visual.ly, a data visualization community similar to Flickr, shows the key data analytics of the individual movies and a snapshot of how HP has aged over the decade-long film series.

Trends & Outliers to Consider in Opening Projections

And, in case you’re considering estimating the figures of the final HP opening weekend, here’s a discussion of the last seven films to give you some trends and outliers to consider.

Next Steps

Dress up as your favorite Harry Potter character and enjoy this historic event this weekend with your muggle friends and family.
While in full costume, check out the magic of easy and fast analytics software with our on-demand webcast “Intro to Spotfire 3.3.”