{"id":33822,"date":"2025-04-19T20:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T20:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/33822\/"},"modified":"2025-04-19T20:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T20:33:09","slug":"hbos-harry-potter-faces-three-big-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/33822\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Faces Three Big Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe single most elusive Hollywood entertainment commodity is\u00a0a sure thing; a title that somehow generates an absolute certainty of success. Some say this doesn\u2019t exist (Warner Bros., after all, was probably extremely confident when it greenlit\u00a0Joker 2). Yet there is an upcoming TV show that is arguably a sure thing, or the closest we\u2019ll likely ever see to one \u2014 Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s biggest IP bet, HBO<\/a>\u2018s\u00a0Harry Potter<\/a>, which earlier this week announced its core adult cast.\u00a0Yet there are also three big hurdles that observers have wondered about, which we\u2019ll get to shortly.<\/p>\n

\n\tHarry Potter\u00a0will reimagine J.K. Rowling\u2019s seven fantasy novels, which have sold more than 600 million copies worldwide, and its eight movie adaptations have cumulatively grossed $7 billion-plus. Each season will cover one of the seven books, with Succession writer Francesca Gardiner as showrunner and Game of Thrones veteran Mark Mylod directing several episodes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe cast includes six-time Emmy winner John Lithgow as the wise and mysterious Hogwarts professor Albus Dumbledore,\u00a0Ozark scene stealer Janet McTeer as\u00a0professor\u00a0Minerva McGonagall,\u00a0Shaun of the Dead\u2019s Nick Frost as the lovable half-giant Hagrid and, in a diverse casting twist, Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You) as the sneering Potions Professor Severus Snape. The production has also reviewed a mind-boggling 32,000 audition tapes for the roles of 11-year-olds Harry, Ron and Hermionie, with those castings still to come.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe wisdom of the project (which may bow on Max in either 2026 or 2027) has drawn debate, particularly around three questions.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first: Will people want to watch a TV version of movies that are barely two decades old? Very likely yes. There\u2019s an enormous amount of content in the books that wasn\u2019t included, or was drastically abbreviated \u2014 especially once you get past the first two books, which are much shorter than the others. The films often have a feeling of hurried intensity (Dumbledore\u2019s out-of-character shouting of \u201cHarry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?!\u201d being the most frequently meme-able example), while the books have a pace that\u2019s far more suited to series television and contain reams of sparkling conversation between Harry, Ron and Hermione that was utterly lost from the films.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second: The Fantastic Beasts film franchise eventually flopped and Amazon\u2019s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has struggled with fans (though Amazon maintains the latter\u2019s streaming numbers are very strong). Warner Bros.\u2019 three-film Harry Potter-inspired series and Prime Video\u2019s LoTR show might seem like very different projects to cite here, but both were attempts to expand beloved fantasy novels that had already been successfully adapted into something rather new and different. Both had (or in the case of Rings of Power, have) the same struggle: They were prequels based on a thin amount of source material rather than a beloved story with a narrative and characters that had already been proven to work. People tend to love the thing (The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter) and these offered fans \u201cthe story before the thing.\u201d HBO\u2019s Harry Potter doesn\u2019t have this problem.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe third, and most sensitive: Will viewers watch a show that creator J.K. Rowling \u2014 with her controversial anti-trans views \u2014 is executive producing? This is, obviously, a rather divisive question. But the answer seems to be yes. Just look at the 2023 Hogwarts Legacy game, which faced boycott calls due to Rowling, yet was that year\u2019s top seller (HBO chief Casey Bloys has likewise pointed to the game\u2019s success when asked about Rowling by reporters). And the film franchise has remained hugely popular: Per one researcher, the 1999 film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\u2019s Stone, was watched 40 million times globally on Max just last year. Bottom line is that people love this story and seem to have no problem separating the art from the artist on this one. (Regardless of your view on the trans debate, it is difficult to square the voice that wrote the books \u2014 so imaginative, warm, clever, witty, empathetic and humane \u2014 with the voice of Rowling\u2019s X account \u2014 so singularly focused, combative and sarcastic. This isn\u2019t making making a political judgement, but remarking about authorial voice \u2014 Stephen King, even when tweeting about politics, still more-or-less sounds like Stephen King).<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of which puts HBO in a rather strong position while already being in a strong position lately \u2014 with\u00a0The White Lotus season three earning series high ratings, freshman medical drama\u00a0The Pitt\u00a0breaking out and\u00a0The Last of Us\u00a0returning for season two to higher numbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTheoretical pitfalls exist, of course. The Potter series could face backlash if it\u2019s perceived as looking and feeling cheap compared to the films (this is not the project on which to cut corners). Fans could create a Snow White-esque controversy around diverse castings (there\u2019s already some huffing and puffing, if not Hufflepuff-ing, about Essiedu). While the confirmed adult actors are pros, casting kids is always a gamble, and their chemistry is key to the story\u2019s charm. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut otherwise, Rowling\u2019s novels provide such a detailed road map (the full story is 3,407 pages long), one already been proven endlessly to work, that it would take a real concerted effort to turn\u00a0Harry Potter\u00a0into a less-than-sure thing. No pressure, HBO.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story first appeared in the April 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine,\u00a0click here to subscribe<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The single most elusive Hollywood entertainment commodity is\u00a0a sure thing; a title that somehow generates an absolute certainty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,8082,2308,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-33822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-harry-potter","10":"tag-hbo","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}