A Harry Potter Season 2 casting update serves as a reminder of one movie mistake the remake needs to fix. Even though Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone doesn’t release on HBO and HBO Max until Christmas, there’s already talk about the adaptation of The Chamber of Secrets. The series has been officially renewed for a second season, with filming expected to commence in the fall ahead of a potential release in December 2027.
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The casting process is currently underway, which includes recasting Ginny Weasley, with Season 1 actor Gracie Cochrane departing the series. As well as that, there’s also been a report that the Harry Potter remake is currently casting Colin Creevey, one of the big new additions for Season 2. Creevey, of course, is a student at Hogwarts who is obsessed with Harry, constantly following him around with his camera, taking photographs, asking for an autograph, and so on. He’s an annoyance to Harry, but it sets up a tragedy that the movies wrongly cut.
What Happened To Colin Creevey In The Harry Potter Books & Movies
Colin’s biggest role is in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, where he’s regularly at Harry’s side with a camera in hand, and is among the people petrified by the basilisk, but survives as he saw it through his camera lens. However, he continues to play a role in every other book: he unwittingly provides Rita Skeeter with information about Harry in The Goblet of Fire, where his brother, Dennis, also becomes a member of Gryffindor. In The Order of the Phoenix, both of them join Dumbledore’s Army, and both are absent from Hogwarts in The Deathly Hallows due to their Muggle-born status.
However, Colin does return to the school for the Battle of Hogwarts, sneaking in despite being underage, and is killed in the fight. We don’t get a lot of detail on what happens, but Harry sees his body being carried into the Great Hall.
Colin disappeared from the movies after The Chamber of Secrets, with it believed to be due to a growth spurt of his actor, Hugh Mitchell. Dennis, meanwhile, was never added to the saga, and it’s basically as if Colin hadn’t existed. In his place, the movies introduced the original character Nigel Wolpert, who appeared in each movie from The Goblet of Fire onwards, seen alongside the main trio, including performing tasks for Ron. Unlike Colin, he does not die in the Battle of Hogwarts.
Why Harry Potter’s Remake Should Include Colin Creevey (& His Tragic Fate)
Part of the point of HBO remaking Harry Potter is that it can provide a more faithful adaptation of the books, with its longer runtime meaning it can include things the movies ended up cutting. And if it stays true to that, then Colin Creevey should obviously be included more, both in Season 2 and more so beyond, along with his younger brother. There is a value in the character as he works well in showing how famous Harry is and how some of his peers and younger students view him, in a positive contrast to someone like Draco Malfoy.
As sad as Colin’s fate is, it is also important to include it in the remake. The tragedy is the point: that this is a war with shocking casualties, and that Hogwarts students themselves are so directly affected by Lord Voldemort’s actions. The line of Harry seeing Colin’s body, where he thinks he is “tiny in death,” is devastating, and the kind of thing that shows the stakes of the fight, the bravery and the tragedy of a bunch of kids fighting against dark wizards, and exemplifies how this series has grown darker, and its audience has grown with it.
Although we know there are at least 50 people who died at the Battle of Hogwarts, most of them aren’t named, and very few are Hogwarts students that we know. Colin’s death, then, makes the battle more realistic, and gives it more emotional heft. He was a character who was purely decent, and whose admiration for Harry had morphed over the years, from awe over his fame to genuine respect and fondness for him as a person, which gives the moment even more weight. The film was wrong to omit it, and there’s no good reason for the remake not to include it, with the casting of Colin as the first step towards finally fixing that mistake.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone will be released this Christmas on HBO and HBO Max.
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