If you think about Harry Potter is probably the greatest example of transmedia storytelling of our time. Even though JK Rowling has kept tight reins on her world and the platform experiences outside the books don’t actually expand the universe, they do allow you to explore it in new ways.
And now this:
BD Live with Harry Potter - HD Nation Clips
Jeff Gomez
Hi Jill!
While in some ways Harry Potter qualifies in my mind as a transmedia property, it would be tough to argue that the saga is an actual transmedia narrative. This is for the very reason that you mention — Rowling has placed some pretty high fences around the canon as it exists between the covers of her books. The films, videogames, toys, audios and user-generated content in no way add to that canon. Most merely repeat or repurpose the tale. Interestingly, the same can be said thus far of Meyer’s Twilight narrative, though I’ll probably be slammed from both sides for mentioning the two properties in the same paragraph! Ha! I’m actually looking forward to a book-born mass media phenom that posits itself as a true transmedia storyline. Coming soon…
ATHENS
I think the up and coming movie -Percy Jackson and the Olympians – The Lightning Theif soon to be released by 20th Century Fox would make for a great transmedia story???