Is it me or does this make very little sense. HBO leadership has made some pretty shocking news (at least to me) as they’ve announced Harry Potter is getting adapted…again…but into a decade long T.V. series.
I’m not totally against this idea, but this has to be the very best adaptation of a book series to justify its existence.
In perhaps the most shocking entertainment/television news of the year so far, the hierarchy over at Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO have announced that the beloved Harry Potter novels, which have already been adapted into eight equally beloved movies, are going to be once again adapted as HBO is set to produce a decade long T.V. series.
Yeah, a little strange, right?
I had a feeling the executives over at Warner Bros. were going to dig into the Harry Potter well again as the record-breaking success of Hogwarts Legacy made such a move an inevitability. Warner Bros. is nothing if not unoriginal these days.
Nevertheless, I still didn’t think that they’d have HBO completely remake the series from scratch! I thought this was going to be another spinoff series either set before the events of Harry Potter, such as Hogwarts Legacy and the Fantastical Beasts movies, or it’d be a sequel to the movies, such as Harry Potter: The Cursed Child (a novelized play that J.K. Rowling set 19 years after the film/novel series.)
It just feels strange for Warner Bros. to greenlight a project that not only has been done really well before, but also wrapped up a little under 12 years ago. I know it feels like it’s been forever since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was in the theaters as the world’s changed so much, but the fact remains that movie series is still less than 15 years old.
Now, I’d get Warner Bros. wanting to remake the series if some of the special effects, acting, CGI, dialogue, etc. seemed wanky and/or outdated, but that just simply isn’t the case. Not only are the Harry Potter movies getting played all the time on regular T.V. (I see at least four Harry Potter movies getting shown on the SYFY channel a week), but the acting and effects look as modern as they come.
Of course, the early movies (ex: The Sorcerer’s Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, etc.) have some outdated CGI, but it’s really a minor issue. Moreover, the acting still stands up today as Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Daniel Ratcliffe (Harry Potter), and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) all are incredible actors, even though they were kids for most of the time the movies were on air.
This may seem rather obvious, but HBO is not going to find child actors the quality of Watson, Ratcliffe, and Grint standing on the street corner. Just ask George Lucas.
(Warner Bros. Discovery Pictures-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Main Trailer)
It’s going to be an almighty challenge finding the appropriate child actor that not only can perform at a high level immediately, but who can also stay on the “straight and narrow” path throughout the entirety of the show’s supposed 10-year runtime.
Having all three of the lead child actors be responsible, hardworking individuals from the time they’re eight all the way until they’re mid-twenties (or however old they were at Deathly Hallows: Part 2) is practically batting a thousand in the acting world.
Anyways, back to the larger ramifications of this decision, this may set a precedent of other famous movie/televisions series, regardless of how old they are, getting remade into decades long T.V. adaptations. And that’s something I’m not sure how I feel about as one the one hand we could see GOT get remade (which would be great), but the other hand could land us in a world where The Lord of the Rings or the Dark Knight trilogy is redone.
So, it’s really a mix bag.
Anywho, I’ll be anxiously awaiting some more info about this series than the 40-second announcement trailer we got.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Warner Bros. Discovery Pictures) (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Main Trailer – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Warner Bros. Discovery Pictures) (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Main Trailer – YouTube)
