Did “The Boy Who Lived” have a new life – on the small screen?
Rumors spread on Monday that a TV series “Harry Potter” is in development on HBO Max. There has long been talk of a series reverse to “Potter”, according to Variety, but there has been no information revealed about this – including cast, writers or even the time period.
When contacted by The Post, Warner Bros. and HBO Max released this devastating joint statement: “There is no Harry Potter series in development in the studio or on the streaming platform.”
That said, if something clandestine is really going on, it could be a remake of the “Harry Potter” books themselves, which came out between 1997 and 2007. After all, even with eight adaptations for big screen films (grossing almost $ 8 billion across the world), there is a lot of material that has been cut, like much of the Marauder’s story or Hermione’s house-elf crusade.
But a TV series could also easily be set in a different era in the rich world of “Harry Potter” – after all, the spinoff film franchise “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is set around World War II, several decades ago before the events of the series, when Dumbledore was young enough to be Jude Law. Harry’s parents’ generation is full of focus. A Hogwarts from the 1970s and 1980s could be fascinating on the screen.
Would the original cast members, like Daniel Radcliffe or Emma Watson, be involved? Time will tell. There are also several scandals that can complicate this.
On the one hand, author JK Rowling has been criticized lately for her controversial views on transgender people, which she described in a long manifesto and could be a problem for the Potter series to be back. After a series of celebrity statements criticizing Rowling, “Harry Potter” headliner Radcliffe spoke in support of the enduring franchise in June.
“To all the people who now feel that their experience with the books has been tarnished or diminished, I deeply regret the pain that these comments have caused you. I really hope you don’t totally lose what was valuable in these stories to you, ”he said of Rowling’s statements.
The spinoff of the “Fantastic Beats” franchise – which still has three more films to come – was also controversial, as star Johnny Depp left the venture under a cloud of domestic violence charges.
The “Potter” books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide and remain a success, so they can also be controversial proof as a pop culture juggernaut.
