The Anniversary of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone coming up and a special on HBO Max celebrating it debuting in January, the time has come to invest in what makes the franchise so special, rather than toying with prequels and spinoffs.
Author and creator J.K. Rowling has been focused on the Fantastic Beasts franchise was an attempt to keep The Wizarding World going, but without Harry Potter, giving the cast of those films and the franchise itself a little rest, but still keeping the magic alive otherwise. Sadly, it's been more of a curse than a potion of Amortentia for the franchise.
With HBO Max looking to expand on the properties it owns (and, ultimately, its subscriber base), and WB looking for a way to bring back the magic of Harry Potter, now is the perfect time to lure the original cast back for a Harry Potter series. Spinoffs and prequels are fine now and again, but chasing that dragon is the wrong course of action for the franchise. Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint (as well as the rest of the Hogwarts graduating class from that time frame) are all primed to return to the characters they've brought to life and made into global icons, which continues to be the most popular and recognizable names in The Wizarding World. Now in their early 30s, the Hogwarts originals are at a perfect age and place in their careers to pick up their wands again and explore a more mature and complex journey into The Wizarding World with new threats, new characters, new magic, and new stories for generations new and old.
Daniel Radcliffe & The Original Stars Have Proven Themselves After Harry Potter
Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint have all proven themselves post-Harry Potter and are well-equipped to return to The Wizarding World. Radcliffe has broken the spell of his Potter visage many times over, taking on controversial and revealing roles, from Alexandra Aja's adaptation of Joe Hill's Horns, the living-corpse film Apple TV series Servant from M. Night Shyamalan. All of these credits make for a decade of practice, distance, and preparedness for a return to Harry Potter.
Fantastic Beasts Is Not The Future For Harry Potter
When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 closed out Rowling's book series adaptations, WB was left with the conundrum of how to continue the franchise. The young cast was certainly ready for a break after spending their childhoods making the films, but WB still had momentum to seize. Its answer was a prequel series of films, which Rowling would write. The studio even got Harry Potter director David Yates to helm them with a cast that included Eddie Redmayne Katherine Waterston, Ezra Miller, Johnny Depp (now replaced by Mads Mikkelsen), Colin Farrell, and Jude Law. The series would lean into the backstory of Newt Scamander and other more obscure characters, featuring all manner of magical creatures and magic, capitalizing on the many things that made Harry Potter such a huge hit, but rarely landing on them successfully. Unfortunately, the lackluster and dwindling box office when compared to the originals was evident, proving that fans simply aren't as invested in The Wizarding World when the name Harry Potter isn't involved.
An HBO Max Series Perfectly Suits Harry Potter's Future
Continuing Harry Potter's adventures in a film series is certainly a possibility and there's the matter of the play adaptation that already exists Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, which is well-suited for the big screen. However, since there isn't a library of books to adapt, the perfect home for Harry Potter's future lies with HBO Max, where the franchise could take on a Game of Thrones-like position with the network. This could return the original cast to their rightful place to carry on their legacy past the original series of films.
Being in their early 30s, Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint (as well as the rest of their graduating class) could pick up a decade or more after Hogwarts and have multiple seasons leading up to the final moments of Deathly Hallows Part 2, where they're sending their own kids to the school. They could then carry on with additional seasons right after if all goes well, carrying on towards an adaptation of The Cursed Child when the actors are at the same middle-age range as their characters. JK Rowling could act as a consultant, co-showrunner, or writer, ensuring that the Harry Potter series is carrying on her intentions (and following a clear narrative roap), while inviting in new creative talent that's grown up with the series to inject their own ideas to further The Wizarding World into the future. The possibilities are endless, but the way forward is through the things that created the true magic of the series, which comes from "The Boy Who Lived" and his Hogwarts classmates.
