The Wizarding World is getting rebooted. As announced this past April, Warner Bros. Discovery is set to reimagine the Harry Potter franchise on its streaming service, Max. This new take on the best-selling book series is in very early development stages and will not be able to make significant progress on scripting and casting processes until after the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes end. Bringing Harry Potter to television represents the franchise going into uncharted territory, as it has experimented with just about every medium (seven books, eight feature films, an open-world video game) besides an episodic streaming series.
Harry Potter Producer Teases TV’s Deep Dive Adaptation
You’re getting rebooted, Harry.
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Speaking to Total Film, Harry Potter TV executive producer David Heyman provided a production update on the upcoming new telling.
“It’s early days,” Heyman said. “We haven’t even hired a writer to begin writing. It’s a bit early.”
The initial announcement of a Harry Potter reboot was met with backlash from fans, as many questioned what is left to do with the franchise considering how faithful the Daniel Radcliffe-led films were. That said, those movies usually clocked in at around 150 minutes yet were adapting stories that went up to 700 pages in length.
“Hopefully [it will be] something that’s very special,” Heyman continued. “[It] gives us an opportunity to see the books, and to enjoy a series which explores the books more deeply.”
Would Daniel Radcliffe Return For Harry Potter TV?
While Harry Potter‘s TV series is operating as a full reboot, there are opportunities to pay homage to the cast that came before it. Just as original Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter popped up in Wonder Woman 1984 or original Ghostbusters star Bill Murray cameoing in the 2016 remake, fans have pondered the possibility of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, or Emma Watson fulfilling legacy roles in the Max series.
“My understanding is that they’re trying to very much start fresh and I’m sure whoever is making them will want to make their own mark on it and probably not want to have to figure out how to get old Harry to cameo in this somewhere,” Radcliffe told ComicBook.com earlier this year. “So I’m definitely not seeking it out in any way. But I do wish them, obviously, all the luck in the world and I’m very excited to have that torch passed. But I don’t think it needs me to physically pass it.”
