What is going on with the “Harry Potter” film franchise? That’s a question that is growing more and more opaque as the months go on. After a massively successful film series covering all of J.K. Rowling’s original books, the author started a spinoff film franchise, “Fantastic Beasts,” which was supposed to rejuvenate the quiet franchise and lead to five more films. However, that experiment has, uh, not worked out so well. Combine that with Rowling’s transphobic tweets and essays, and needless to say, there are plenty of questions surrounding the future of Warner Bros. Discovery’s cash cow. But apparently, there is a plan in place. Well, not so much a plan, but at least an idea.
According to a new report from Puck, Warner Bros. Discovery has an idea for continuing the film franchise, but the studio has yet to get the approval of J.K. Rowling. The plan, as it reportedly stands now, is for Warner Bros. Discovery to try to adapt the original play, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” as a two-part film, in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the brand. Previously, when approached with that idea, Rowling wasn’t interested. However, with the failing ‘Fantastic Beasts’ franchise, there is a hope that the author would be more willing to concede on ‘Cursed Child’ to keep the brand on the big screen.
As alluded to above, the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise has fallen quite a bit over the course of three films, in terms of box office grosses and fan/critic sentiment. What started as a seemingly interesting spinoff/prequel of the ‘Harry Potter’ saga, ‘Fantastic Beasts’ failed to live up to the expectations of fans and, even with Rowling on board as a screenwriter, the films have seen a huge drop in box office grosses in a relatively short amount of time. In fact, the most recent installment, “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” is the first film in the “Harry Potter” franchise to actually lose money at the box office.
This has led Warner Bros. Discovery to push hard for a course correction. Puck states the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ franchise is effectively dead. And any hopes for a ‘Harry Potter’ TV series have been shot down by Rowling herself. So, for this franchise to continue, there are apparently two options — 1) adapt ‘Cursed Child’ or 2) possibly remake the entire ‘Harry Potter’ film series. So yeah, the real hope is option 1.
Obviously, there’s no deal in place and there’s no chance any of this will come to fruition before 2025. But it would appear that one of WBD’s biggest franchises is currently in a state of flux and no one really knows what’s going to happen.