Earlier this year, to the delight of fans of J.K. Rowling\u2019s \u2018Wizarding World\u2019, a new Harry Potter streaming series was announced for the American streaming service \u2018Max\u2019 (formerly \u2018HBOMax\u2019). In recent years, the global bestsellers have been hit with controversy over comments by Rowling \u2013 who now co-owns the franchise alongside Warner Brothers \u2013 yet merchandise and spin-off projects are continuously magicked into existence. But with all the potential hype a rebooted series could garner, it is safe to assume that Max\u2019s Harry Potter series will be a creative disaster.<\/p>\n
Here is what we know about the series. Max\u2019s Harry Potter will first air in 2025\/6 and is projected to run for 10 years. The series will retell the narratives of the books, but apparently in much more detail than the movies could afford to focus on. The series will presumably have a completely new cast, with new child actors for the \u2018golden trio\u2019 \u2013 much to the delight of every theatre mum up and down the country. The basis of any justification for the reboot is to innovate where the films did not. Innovation for a new audience, innovation with new visuals, innovation of interpreting the world of Harry Potter, and innovation through a more \u2018book-accurate\u2019 story.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go over all of these potential successes the reboot has and pick apart at them.<\/p>\n
Firstly, there is no new audience to innovate for. Whilst franchises like Planet of the Apes \u2013 directly rebooted in 2001 \u2013 aren\u2019t as well know and can merit a reboot, Harry Potter is still growing strong as a franchise. It is THE children\u2019s book. When you see prep school kids in the dining room on world book day, most of them are dressed in Gryffindor robes \u2013 alongside the small group of football kit kids who couldn\u2019t be bothered to make a sodding effort. There is no real need to reintroduce Harry Potter to a new audience, as the audience is ever present. For the potential visual effects improvements over the films \u2013 whilst the troll lurking around the bathroom from the Philosopher\u2019s Stone (\u2018rattle rattle, jewellery jewellery\u2019) looks outdated now \u2013 most of the films hold up visually. Besides, with the way VFX are nowadays, any new version of the cave troll would probably look like it was imported from the PS2 Harry Potter game.<\/p>\n
The main issue for innovating the Harry Potter franchise is the interpretation or spin the series will put on the world visually \u2013 and how any major deviation from what has already been done will fail. Max\u2019s announcement clip is entirely made up of reused aspects from the film. The title logo, the inclusion of Hedwig\u2019s Theme, and the backdrop of Hogwarts \u2013 all the same from the films. The reboot series will face a key issue, its existing interpretation. Most reboots bring their own spin to things and are welcomed to do so \u2013 you can tell a difference between Michael Keaton\u2019s Batman and Robert Patterson\u2019s for example. The Harry Potter series is different in that the world is so established visually, that it would be harder to stand out from the shadow of the films. Years of merchandising have provided definitive articles on how every aspect of the Harry Potter universe looks, acts, and sounds. 2023\u2019s \u2018Hogwarts Legacy\u2019 used the same visuals as the films for its spin on Hogwarts \u2013 with a nearly identical layout of Hogwarts, and the exact same looks for the magical creatures. Years of merchandising of the series have implanted how everything looks and sounds. I sometimes get adverts for the latest Dobby toy (one of its taglines is \u2018he knows when he\u2019s been freed\u2019 \u2013 from slavery, essentially) which has been voiced by someone attempting to do their best Toby Jones\u2019s Dobby impression, again capitalising on the pre-existing visuals of the franchise. Whilst the series could make drastic changes to how aspects of the world look, why bother? Everyone knows the pentagonal box of a Chocolate Frog \u2013 why would you go and create a new one?<\/p>\n
The series\u2019 final chance at innovating from the Films \u2013 a greater run time to add all aspects of the book. But the ability to go into more detail of the books is not as innovative as Max hopes. Film adaptations make cuts from source material for a reason. There is a key reason why Tom Bombadil isn\u2019t in Peter Jackson\u2019s Lord of the Rings Trilogy \u2013 in a film setting, he is a completely irrelevant character, whose section in Tolkien\u2019s book undermines the pace of the films, whilst not bringing anything substantial to the films. In the Philosopher\u2019s Stone book, Harry and co stumble upon the forbidden floor whilst going to meet Malfoy for a duel at night \u2013 with pages dedicated to the build up of this duel that never comes about. In the film, Harry and co stumble upon the forbidden floor after accidentally being taken there by the stairs. The unnecessary wizard duel is ignored, as it isn\u2019t necessary. Whilst a TV series setting would provide more time for aspects like this it isn\u2019t necessary to show all aspects of the book. Some may pre-emptively accuse Max of introducing new content to the plot, and perhaps trying to \u2018diversify\u2019 the original story to be more inclusive than Rowling\u2019s original writings \u2013 and whilst representation is not bad, the controversies and discord brought about it may taint the project like it did with the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy.<\/p>\n
In summary, Max\u2019s new series will find it hard to expand creatively on the Harry Potter franchise. The pre-existing properties of the franchise visually and in its merchandise mean that changes to the look of the series will be very minute in comparison to the films. The series will not be made to garner new fans, but to appease fans already familiar with the ins and outs of the franchise. The whole creation of the series is summed up in the idea that God saw how popular Oxygen was, and decided to remake it to look nearly exactly the same and do the exact same thing \u2013 no one wants God to reboot Oxygen! Whilst Warner Brothers predict a decade of content, my prediction right now will be that the series does not reach that milestone, and will either get cut short early on, or its ending brought closer than originally anticipated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monty previews the forthcoming Harry Potter reboot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,14,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computing.ashville.co.uk\/iaintest1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}