Let’s try to analyze a different point of view on the Harry Potter issue, which tries to gather the discontent of the fans at the news of the series in development for (HBO) Max which will reboot in a serial version what has been done in the films, starting from the novels by JK Rowling.
Avada Kedavra
We know, start an article about Harry Potter with an unforgivable curse it may seem drastic, but honestly the writer sees no other way reaction possible at the confirmation of a few days ago, in a series of maxi-announcements arrived from HBO Max (soon only Max) of a series of franchises that will return in serial format on the platform. Among these the most famous wizard of cinema and TV, born from the pen of JK Rowling, which we will now find again in seven seasons for seven books of the saga, with a totally new cast and ten years of production foreseen for the ordered TV series. Of course “First Reaction Shock”. At the same time, after explaining to you why the series could be an opportunity and a chance to improve some aspects of feature films, let’s try to look at the other side of the Horcrux, and try to explain all the reasons why HBO Max series it is not what we deserve nor what we need. To use the overused phrase taken from the dark Knight totally negative, for once.
Matter of time
Timing is everything, especially today when time is playing a lot of tricks in audiovisuals, and (HBO) Max’s maxi-announcements are just yet another demonstration of this. An eternal nostalgic look at the past, focusing again on safe and already tested franchises rather than betting on something completely new and different. So, besides The Big Bang Theory And The Conjuringin addition to the existing one of Ithere it comes the first series dedicated to the Wizarding Worldbut it’s all about “right time, right place” as we said. A rebranding that of Max that seems to look too much to the past and too little to the future, risking to invalidate even the historically quality counterpart of HBO. It is too early for a reboot of the film saga, which only ended in 2011 with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, and of which we saw the first reunion of the cast last year with Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts. Understand that there are no extremes to be able to accept a new beginning for a franchise that is still so fresh in the minds of viewers and fans. Although some films are certainly more successful than others, although they necessarily have not always been faithful to the original novels, although a serial approach certainly allows more episodes (and therefore more time) to transpose situations and characters by betraying them less, a different medium that will not be able to please everyone. Proof of this do you know where we see it? In Max and Warner Bros.’ use of the iconic soundtrack from the films for the very first teaser that confirmed the series.
Matter of cast
The biggest bet for the new upcoming production, in addition to the most faithful transposition, will be the casting. The (often meaningless) toto-casting of fans on who they would like to play their favorites has already started on social networks, which they may not have been able to have the first time. But it goes without saying that the casting work done by the film saga is excellent, it has already employed practically 90% of the actors and actresses in the United Kingdom, and in the shared mentality each of the characters is associated, willy-nilly, with that interpreter . Most of the cast, after all, grew up with the corresponding characters in front of the camera and, often, with the spectators beyond the screen. A bond so indissoluble that it will be difficult to break it, even more than the blood pact between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Not only the magical trio – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint – who owe so much to the saga, but many others as well. Who else could surprise us more than Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom, make us fall in love more than Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood, be loved/hated more than Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy, and more obnoxious than Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge? Among other things, some have left us more or less recently such as Alan Rickman (the one and only Snape), Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid, seen right in the Reunion in which he recalled in one sentence how his character will survive the interpreter) or even Helen McCrory (Narcissa Malfoy). Performers doubly linked post mortem to their roles. The production of the series is already starting very badly, in short, at a disadvantage.
Harry Potter: a more inclusive cast is thought for the HBO reboot TV series
Matter of (multi)verse
The Wizarding World is potentially infinite and the saga has proven it spin-off of Fantastic Beasts, set many years before the original one and born from none other than a textbook in the Hogwarts library. The ingenious idea of JK Rowling, who then wanted to take care of the new project firsthand by demonstrating her own incapacity as a screenwriter, had started “with a bang” and then dropped drastically with the following two chapters, also thanks to the cast changes and production delays due to multiple factors, so much so that the initial pentalogy could now only be a trilogy, and this new announcement would seem to confirm it. Yet, despite the missteps of the spin-offs, the world of Harry Potter could be explored from a thousand other points of view and sub-universes, which were not the reboot of the main saga. Sure, she definitely meant risking more, especially after the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them experiment didn’t exactly pan out, but surely there wouldn’t be more magic in that kind of choice? Also because there are hundreds of periods in the history of the Wizarding World to explore, including a further “spin-off of the spin-off” starring perhaps only Dumbledore and Grindelwald. There Harry Potter TV series it is also a move not to let the rights to the books owned by Warner Bros. expire, but certainly by exploring other corners of that fantastic world, another narrative stratagem could have been found to remedy the “problem”.
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Transphobia issue
Last but not least, even the walls know it: JK Rowling has made a lot of talk about herself (in a negative sense) following her multiple transphobic statements, not at all appreciated by the LGBTQIA+ community. Incredible when you think about it, given how much she herself has created a world that talks about diversity par excellence. Statements that led Warner Bros. to move away as far as possible from her in the last chapter of Fantastic Beasts – Dumbledore’s Secrets, placing her alongside Steve Kloves on the screenplay and not giving her full responsibility for the success (or otherwise) of the film. Now the woman has been involved as an executive producer in the serial in development, “to enable the books to be transposed as faithfully as possible”.
One problem, that of making her earn further by rebooting the saga, which she had already recently presented with Hogwarts: Legacies, the video game that brought fans from all over the world back to the most famous School of Magic ever, dividing them between those who on principle had no intention of buying the game to avoid further income for the author and those who instead preferred to let themselves be captured (once again time) from nostalgia, separating his attachment to the franchise from his disagreement with Rowling’s ideologies. Yet the same president and CEO of HBO and Max Content Casey Bloys, has declared that the intent is to bring more inclusivity than in the past through the new ordered series. That there are recastings in sight right upstream, at the level of ethnicity and skin color for some characters, perhaps including in some way also the trans community? Only time will tell, but right now we can only wish him not to be merciful.