Three weeks after its release, The Woman in Black has claimed a remarkable achievement: it is by some distance the most successful homegrown horror film ever released in Britain.
Equally significantly, perhaps, it marks the transition of the Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe – playing the lead role of widowed solicitor Arthur Kipps – from one of the most successful, well paid child stars of all time to something approaching a grown-up acting career.
For all the fame and money the bespectacled Hogwarts schoolboy has brought Radcliffe over the eight-film franchise, he could provide a straitjacket for the 22-year-old actor. Radcliffe's Potter co-stars, Emma Watson, 21, and Rupert Grint, 23, face a near-identical dilemma. All three spent their teenage years in front of the cameras, becoming solidly identified with a single character. In short, do they have a future?
"It's a tough question," said Charles Gant, film editor of Heat magazine. "They've all got pluses and minuses. Radcliffe is good casting in The Woman in Black, even if he's arguably a little young to play a grieving father. But to be honest, it's a struggle to see him playing a lead role in a lot of popular genres, like, say, a contemporary romance. Or an action movie. He hasn't got a heavily masculine persona, and that's what you need to be a leading man in Hollywood."
Steven Gaydos, executive editor of Variety magazine, suggests Hollywood has its eye on him all the same. "Daniel has established himself as a first-rate actor," he said. "I'm sure he and his handlers are looking for that Bafta/Oscar role to further prove this."
Radcliffe's most obvious comparison is to another young English actor, 25-year-old Robert Pattinson, also a franchise veteran (of the Twilight films) and who is also negotiating a similarly tricky transition. Pattinson has done period too – the forthcoming Bel Ami – but his status as a teen idol means that he can land sexier projects, such as David Cronenberg's adaptation of Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis.
According to Gant: "The real money in Hollywood is for guys who, as the cliche has it, men want to be, and women want to be with. I don't know if Radcliffe is quite in that bracket. But people have grown up with him and have a great deal of affection for him. A good chunk of Woman in Black's success was down to their desire to see him move on from Harry Potter."
Watson, on the other hand, is taking things more carefully. While Radcliffe demonstrated his acting ambition by taking theatre jobs and the like during breaks in the Potter schedule, Watson opted to take a degree course at university and sign up for modelling and design work. She had occasional acting roles – the most recent of which was the small part of a costume assistant in My Week with Marilyn.
Gaydos says she "is under the most pressure as lovely young actresses all face the most career pressure", while for Gant, she "looks like a movie star". "But in terms of her inheritance from the Potter franchise, she hasn't got the same level of fan love as the other two: maybe it's because Hermione just wasn't as endearing as Harry and Ron."
Glamour
Watson's route out of Potter would seem in keeping with her predilection for intellectualised glamour: she has just finished filming the US indie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the adaptation of Stephen Chbosky's spiky novel about a high-school student discovering sex and drugs, and has signed up for Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, about teens who break into celebrities' houses in LA.
In neither film does she play a lead; that will only come with Your Voice in My Head, drawn from journalist Emma Forrest's account of her relationship with her psychiatrist.
"She hasn't tried to be the centre of anything yet," said Gant. "It's a smart move, but it means there's a massive question mark as to her USP. We're waiting for something that defines her. She needs a role where you get a strong flavour of who she is."
Watson's nearest contemporary is probably Carey Mulligan, whose career has been ballasted by her star-making lead role in An Education. Watson would probably be envious of Mulligan's ability to move between British psychodramas including Shame, Hollywood noirs such as Drive, and romantic epics such as the forthcoming Great Gatsby.
The third member of the Potter trio, Grint, is the one who looks like he'll be most up against it now that Potter has finished. During the series, his popularity among the franchise's fans meant he could take a string of roles, from Northern Irish indie Cherrybomb to the Viz-esque Thunderpants. Now, however, his Ringo Starr-ish position is perhaps becoming apparent, with no clear future as a solo performer mapped out.
"He's a conundrum," said Gant. "He was impressive in the first Potter films, with good comic timing, but as an actor he's grown the least. He's not natural casting for leading man roles, and could only have a career as a sidekick, really. He can be quite funny, but when you look at the wealth of comedic actors in the US – Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Seth Rogen – they seem much bigger talents somehow. I'm not struck by his ambition, unlike the other two."
Ambition, indeed, is the issue – after the hefty pay deals offered to keep the Potter films motoring along, all three never need to work again. In the 2011 Sunday Times Rich List, Radcliffe's worth was estimated at £48m, and Watson and Grint at £24m apiece.
Gaydos points out that "successful young actors and successful young athletes have a lot in common", adding: "Huge salaries, great fame, great temptations, brief careers."
Time will tell if the Potter kids have whatever it is that drives on the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Ryan Giggs. It has to be more than simply money.