UnNews:Warner Bros to acquire Harry Potter

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

9 November 2010

Previous acquisitions leave an aftertaste to today's financial news.

WATFORD, England -- U.S. media giant Warner Bros has agreed to buy Leavesden Studios, where the Harry Potter movies are made.

Warner chief executive Barry Meyer touted the company's 86-year involvement in British film production. "Our multimillion-pound investment demonstrates our long-term commitment to the UK film industry."

Leavesden, located 25 miles from London, was an aircraft factory during World War II and later a Rolls-Royce factory for airplane engines.

Still afterward, the site served as a Cadbury's chocolate factory. In fact, it was the site where Kraft chairwoman Irene Rosenfeld personally declared, "Even after we acquire Cadbury's, we are keeping all the factories open. Forever." As the reader knows, the so-called Leavesden Bunnyworks were shut tight, a mere fortnight later, as an unnamed subordinate railed against "the sodding unions."

In fact, many of the former Cadbury's dippers and stirrers remain employed here as grips and gaffers in the Harry Potter franchise. But they still voice enthusiasm for working at a company acquired by an American multinational.

Sources

• Staff, "Warner Bros to buy Harry Potter studio in England" Associated Press, November 9, 2010