Original Harry Potter Director Reveals How He’d Want to Return to the Franchise

Filmmaker Chris Columbus helped catapult the Harry Potter franchise into one of the biggest pop-culture juggernauts of the last two decades, having directed an adaptation of the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. He followed that film, released in the U.S. as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” with its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. While it’s been more than 15 years since he’s had any direct involvement in the franchise, Columbus recently confirmed that he could see himself returning to the series if there was an opportunity to direct a film adaptation of the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

“I flirted with the idea — not flirted, I think it would be just wonderful to do a version of the stage play, Cursed Child, with the original cast because J.J.Abrams did such a wonderful job on rebooting Star Wars with the original cast, that sense of nostalgia immediately, there’s something very emotional about that,” Columbus revealed to ComicBook.com in honor of the original film’s 20th anniversary. “And those kids, not such kids anymore, are about the right age to play those roles.”

After seven books and eight films, the proper Harry Potter universe wrapped up years ago, but passion for the series is just as strong as ever, allowing the saga to continue in a variety of ways. In 2016, the “Wizarding World of Harry Potter” saw a major resurgence, as it saw the debut not only of the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which jumped forward in the series’ narrative to explore what happened to Harry nearly 20 years after we had last seen him, as well as the premiere of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, another adventure within the mythology that took place decades before Harry was born. That film’s second sequel is expected to hit theaters in 2022.

Virtually since HBO Max launched, rumors and reports have emerged that a Harry Potter TV series was in development for the streamer, with conflicting reports about such projects leaving fans to merely speculate about the franchise’s potential. 

While Columbus might not necessarily be interested in getting involved in the TV series, if there is one, it sounds as though a key component in his interest would be to collaborate with the original cast all these years later.

Stay tuned for details on the future of the Harry Potter franchise.

Would you like to see Columbus return to the series? Let us know in the comments below!