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Look, I know what you’re thinking. This would be a big statement about how Max (HBO Max’s highly anticipated rebirth) will light up the new Harry Potter series despite the objections of those who find JK Rowling’s Potter creator’s views distasteful. it’s not. My colleague Gina Gray has already addressed the challenges of adapting Rowling’s work more eloquently than I could of her Hogwarts Legacy review. No, this column poses a different question: Who needs this?
For those who don’t know, a new Harry Potter project announced by Warner Bros. Discovery Wednesday will turn Rowling’s seven Potter novels into a decade-long series. All major characters will be recast, and the series will, in theory, allow Max to adapt the books in more detail than the Warner Bros. films did.
Well sure. but why? As a Star Wars fan, I have the urge to return to your favorite universe over and over again. But this isn’t Max crafting a new series based on previously unexplored characters; It’s a Disney + makeover New hope in a TV season. The eight pottery films already in place run nearly 20 hours as is. Sure, some things are hidden or ignored, but fans dying for more content also have a Broadway show, a theme park, a video game, and the entire Fantastic Beasts movie series to visit if they really need more Wizarding World.
Really, that should be enough. Yes, as someone who wrote that last week Super Mario Bros movie It was a ploy to connect a new generation of gamers to the Mario games, and I understood why Warner Bros. did it. Discovery does just that. But at least this movie tried to create a new story. spending 10 years Retelling a story that has already been told ad nauseam He is just lazy.
It may also be difficult. Since then, many of the actors in the original Potter films have condemned Rowling’s comments about transgender people. Anyone — actor, director, screenwriter — signing up for this new series should be asked about Rowling’s opinions and her involvement on a show for which she’s an executive producer.
So maybe it’s about Rowling after all. Because although this upcoming series appears to be a repost of already existing material, it also comes from someone who made comments that many people would find hurtful. When Casey Bloys, HBO’s chief content officer and Max CEO, was asked at yesterday’s press event if he thought Rowling’s views would make it difficult to recruit talent for the series, he declined to comment, saying he wasn’t in the forum to do so. “Obviously, the Harry Potter story is incredibly positive, positive, and about love and self-acceptance,” he told reporters. “That’s our priority – what’s on screen.”
So, will what appears on screen reflect Rowling’s views? or not? The press release announcing the show promised that it would be “faithful,” which Vulture’s Kathryn Van Arendonck noted, only decrees it to be a dull act that “makes no choices of its own.” If so, this new series will be just a recitation of what has already been said. And Max will be the forum for that.
(tags to translate) screen