So Many Things Can Go Wrong With HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Show

There have been rumblings this was happening for a long while now, but it appears to be close to fruition. A new Bloomberg report says that Warner Bros. Discovery is nearing a deal which would bring a new Harry Potter TV series to HBO Max.

And yes, this is a reboot. No more Fantastic Beasts, no show about everyone’s kids in the future. This would be heading back to the original books, the original films for re-do of the original seven stories, which according to this, would be a seven season run for the show.

On the one hand, I’m sure this seems like a slam dunk for Warner Bros. as no matter how the series goes, it’s sure to attract a lot of eyeballs. However, it seems like there is the potential for so, so much to go wrong here, and there general vibe around this project, even among hardcore Potter fans is “What? No, why would you do this?”

Ready to feel old? The original Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone movie debuted in 2001, 22 years ago. So it’s not like it was just yesterday. However, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was ten years later in 2011, and that’s getting a lot closer. Regardless, those films were generally extremely well-received on the whole, and most Potter fans still have Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint etched in their minds as Harry, Hermione and Ron. Recasting them would be…a challenge, to say the least, and would likely get a whole lot of people upset.

As for JK Rowling, who has self-destructed her public image thanks to a seemingly endless string of controversial tweets about trans people, would indeed be involved in the show in some capacity, more so than she was with Hogwarts Legacy, the recent video game which also attracted loads of controversy (albeit it still went on to be a massive hit). Here, the report says that Rowling would be involved in the series to ensure it “remains loyal to her original material,” but she wouldn’t be there day-to-day or be its primary creator or showrunner.

The show’s development is certainly not surprising, but I think it’s going to be an enormous challenge to get this right. Hogwarts Legacy, at the very least, attracted an audience of die-hard Potter fans who have been waiting for a sprawling Potterverse RPG for two decades, and the game was actually quite good. But it was also very disconnected from the original book series, whereas this show is about to recast three beloved actors (and really, dozens of beloved actors overall) to make this show. It very much reminds of me Amazon’s Rings of Power, which I suppose wasn’t a remake of LOTR, and yet it’s the same idea. People loved this IP as a blockbuster movie series so surely they would love it as a blockbuster TV series. For Rings of Power, it’s attracted middling reception at best. And a middling reception for a planned seven season Harry Potter series is not what Warner Bros. would want to see.

This will be such a fine tightrope to walk here between the love Potter fans have for the original books and movies, the problem of recasting everyone for a new series and JK Rowling lurking around the production, no doubt drawing more controversy as this process unfolds. It could be a massive hit but man, it sure does seem like they’re playing with fire here.

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