Harry Potter and the Wizarding World

[EricJ]

When Warner made the movie deal that allowed them original sequels, they likely envisioned "Hogwarts: the Next Generation", with a new class, and...even that would have been a better idea than "JK says she's going to write a lot of obscure woke backstory, with no imaginable kid appeal, for us herself!"

But, after the deal was announced, fan sentiment turned to defending JK, so they had to keep her on the deal.

[Ben]

Imagine a whole film on the Elf Liberation Front!

F*** off! It’s the Liberation Front of Elves!




But no…midquels is not what he’s thinking. When he says sequels, he's not imaginative enough to not mean just that. As Eric says, Potter The Next Gen, with an adult Harry being brought in to serve as teacher (ultimately headmaster?) of Hogwarts — which is why perhaps JK included that final scene set years later, to show that this *didn't* happen and thus exactly try and preclude it from doing so.

But money talks and ******** walks, so it’ll all happen anyway. The "best" that might happen from JK's side is that she could say yes on negotiation of completing the Beasts cycle with at least one more wrap-up film. But the Potter ship has sailed. Not only has the story been told, but the actors are not their characters anymore. So we're looking at recasts or next gen, which also isn’t "classic Potter" and pits us back in Fantastic Beasts territory. None of which will really work…

[EricJ]

Except for Cursed Child, which will be made for NO OTHER REASON than stunt-casting the adult actors in the adult roles, and persuading the now-adult fans of the first film to indoctrinate their own little Albuses on the franchise--
With movies today looking backwards when they can't look forwards, Warner has been double and triple-commissioning their old 80's/90's hits for the express purpose of bringing an iconic original-film actor back for the Old Harrison Ford appearance.

And, considering the cast already came back for the HBOMax reunion, it shows that the surviving members aren't against the idea.

[Ben]

I have the Cursed Child script book thingy, but never got around to reading it, so don’t know how it ends, but am guessing everything turns out okay in the end, so I guess there’s the possibility of using that as a quasi-legit way to introduce a new series as a "true" and "authorised" sequel to the original books/films and then using the younger cast to anchor new ongoing stories, with the older parents popping up Marvel style every now and then here and there.

They’d need JK to provide an overreaching arc so that it didn’t go the way of Star Wars, though she apparently had that for Beasts too before that all got changed by the third film in. As said before, I did know firsthand that the Warners thinking was five Beasts and then two Cursed Childs, but that was naturally before the Discovery merge and these new plans.

Personally, I’d like to see one last Beasts, at least, to at least wrap that misguided series up, and I’m interested in what a Cursed Child film could be, if they manage to get the resistant cast back (yes, they did that special, but that’s very different from a six month movie shoot), but anything more is just going to feel like big screen versions of a TV show. Which is kind of would be anyway if it all just ends up on HBO+ or whatever the combined WBD name will be after next summer (I can’t see them sticking with the fairly niche HBO name, and plus seems to be the buzzword at the moment, for whatever reason).

And my pick for adult Harry if Radcliffe really does stick out a return is still Tom Hiddleston. Same grin, earnestness and Brit accent. A little bit of weight on and he’s an older Harry for sure.

[GeffreyDrogon]

Well, it looks like the Fantastic Beasts series is dead...

https://sffgazette.com/fantasy/harry_po ... #gs.hh46rd

[Ben]

WBD are nuts if they didn’t wrap things up on one final movie. That would at last give Beasts closure, meaning that as box sets and syndication packages the series would have value, as opposed to being an open ended story that has no ending and no real connection to Potter as a whole. A fourth film can tie in to the wider story and help monetize the franchise as it’s own thing, possibly also being something — if they are smart — that they can call back on in future Potter-focused movies. "IF"…

[Evergreen]

JK says she's going to write a lot of obscure woke backstory, with no imaginable kid appeal, for us herself!"

I'm not sure what this means, but Grindelwald and Dumbledore having been in love with one another is neither obscure nor "woke."

If The Secrets of Dumbledore is the last, it ended the trilogy well at least. It's funny, I actually bought the Blu-ray less than 25 hours ago because it's $8 on Amazon. It's only a shame executive meddling screwed up the second one, particularly with the third being the end; they clearly interfered in the 2nd one to make it more plot and less character, we could've had three films with a great deal of Newt, Jacob, etc. instead of just two.

I think a film series based on the Marauders would be exciting to most people--Sirius, Remus, James (a Harry look-a-like), Snape, etc. James Potter and the Marauders would be a decent series title for the first installment, then "James Potter and X" for the following ones. That and Cursed Child are easy successes, although I don't think even a Marauders series could last longer than three films like Fantastic Beasts because of the fact that there are no book releases happening at the same time to add hype and the gist of the story is already known just like with FB. And then there's also HP mini-series and/or eventually (in 15 years maybe) a film series remake.

[EricJ]

I'm not sure what this means, but Grindelwald and Dumbledore having been in love with one another is neither obscure nor "woke."maybe) a film series remake.

If you sat through most of the almost Tim Burton-level "Muggle persecution of Magic-users" subplot in the first FB...you'd have some idea.
It's true that no one does Woke like 21st-cty. Britain does Woke, and it's sort of ironic how hard JK tried to pitch herself to the gay-progressive fans in her audience, knowing what happened to her later.

JK's biggest mistake in listening to the backstory obsessed fangirls (who need backstory because every movie they like is "real"), and the Dumby-luvs-Grindy HS/college fan-shipping audience was the belief that the story "wasn't for kids anymore"--
Which is how the easy lure of Fan Gentrification usually screws up a popular market that, well, IS for kids, in the good way, and turns it into something isolated, idiosyncratic, too insular for its own audience and too inexplicable to attract a wide mainstream.

[Ben]

Star Wars gives a worried glance in this direction…

[Dacey]

None of what Eric just said is true, but anyway…

[Evergreen]

If you sat through most of the almost Tim Burton-level "Muggle persecution of Magic-users" subplot in the first FB...you'd have some idea.

Persecution of magical people was already in HP. It happened to Arianna Dumbledore in the 7th book. The stuff with Credence being an Obscurus was setup to relate to her story and involve it more later (

with Aberforth turning out to be his father

). Or the Dursleys' treatment magical people, for example. Nothing there was new to HP, much less "woke" of all things.

I'm not sure she "pitched" herself as anything other than an author, she was just being honest with how she envisioned her own characters. She always thought of Dumbledore as gay, and that fits in with what was depicted in HP&tDH. Really the /only/ thing FB does is make the subtext in Deathly Hallows full and undeniable text because so many instantly dismissed her comments back then because they didn't want it to be true. Dumbledore cries over Grindelwald and even Harry tries to reassure him that Grindelwald did genuinely care about him (not simply used him) because he hid the location of the Elder Wand in an attempt to keep Dumbledore's grave from being desecrated. Rowling spurred on the Dumbledore and Grindelwald stuff herself, barely a month after Deathly Hallows was out, not shippers or the fanfic crowd. It was a detail that was no different than backstory she had for Umbridge, McGonagall, or any other character that was revealed later on Pottermore.

[Daniel]

Evergreen knows their Potter!

Which is kind of would be anyway if it all just ends up on HBO+ or whatever the combined WBD name will be after next summer (I can’t see them sticking with the fairly niche HBO name, and plus seems to be the buzzword at the moment, for whatever reason).

You probably don't remember this, right before the site was renamed Views we had a group chat and one of the names I through out was Animated News+. It was basically shot down since News didn't have the best reputation at the time. See, we would've been ahead!

[Ben]

That’s still a terrible name! It’ll never work!

[Daniel]

Where's a DeLorean when you need it!

[ShyViolet]

Or a TARDIS!