Just up top, SNACK is opposed to JK Rowling’s views on trans rights. Trans woman are woman.
Something is brewing at HBO. Deep in a dungeon somewhere in muggle London, showrunner Francesca Gardiner is fussing over a bubbling cauldron, preparing a very polarizing potion for fans of the Wizarding World. Harry Potter is getting a TV reboot, essentially erasing the original movies for good. So is Harry Potter ending in 2025?
Wait a minute – hold onto your broomsticks! Of course the beloved films aren’t going anywhere; you can still binge them all on Netflix. But as reported back in June, Gardiner and director Mark Mylod of Succession fame will helm a new adaptation of the Harry Potter books for HBO, introducing the next generation of fans to the magical world… at a cost.
Expecto A Shake-up!
In time to hit its 2026 release window, or more realistically 2027, the entire Harry Potter franchise will no doubt undergo a rebrand of mythical proportions. To promote the new series, Warner Bros. and HBO will likely distance themselves from the original films, and the original actors, to avoid any kind of confusion. They want to clear the runway, so to speak, which is standard procedure for Hollywood when it comes to reboots. But Harry Potter is a different, more fantastic beast.
Resetting the Wizarding World will be no easy task. Not when Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson still feel so current to us fans, albeit not having appeared in an HP movie since 2011. Seeing them replaced still strikes me (and many others) as unbelievably strange. But as of November this year, the brand new Harry, Ron and Hermione have been found. After three months of open casting calls in the UK, the next generation of fresh faced wizards were hand-picked, not unlike a billion dollar Triwizard Tournament, to replace the original ‘Golden Trio’.
So say goodbye to Daniel, Rupert and Emma. After twenty-two-years, the original cast won’t be the faces of the franchise anymore, as the current marketing and merchandising campaigns are slowly phased out in favor of promoting the new cast, and the new show.
But This Is Reboot-ddikulus!
I hear you. It is almost impossible to imagine Harry Potter without the original actors running around Hogwarts, messing with Moaning Myrtle or driving poor Mr Filch insane. Something about recasting Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid, or Maggie Smith’s Professor McGonagall feels profoundly wrong, but that’s Hollywood. A Harry Potter reboot was inevitable. Yet, there is an element that’s even more unusual than seeing Neville Longbottom with an all-new face: everything from Hogwarts castle to Diagon Alley will be completely redesigned for the show. Nothing will be the same.
It’s understandable that Gardiner and Mylod want their Harry Potter world to be distinctive. They can’t afford to piggyback off the films; this isn’t a simple copy and paste job. So, every element of the universe that we think of as being ‘Harry Potter’ will likely be redefined and transformed, for better or worse. Down to the finest detail, like characters’ wands being redesigned and individual classrooms getting complete makeovers, nothing will go untouched. Fans already got a taste for this in 2023’s Hogwarts Legacy, a best-selling video game which presented the main castle as an amalgamation of both the films and the books. Still, to my eyes this hybrid Hogwarts felt somewhat fake. We’re all very familiar with what the legendary school is supposed to look like, so anything different can strike us as fan fiction. Although this might be how the series chooses to tackle things, cherry picking from the canon to create something mostly new. Giving us a taste of nostalgia will be critical to having us accept this new rendition of the magical world.
So, is 2025 the last year of Harry Potter as we know it?
Oh, no! Even The Books Aren’t Safe From Reboots
To many fans, JK Rowling’s books are sacred texts – but definitely not her views. Her novels a sacrosanct case of source material too important to be meddled with by any film, or TV show. Accept, that’s exactly what’s going to happen when the Harry Potter series finally airs. Following that, our experience of the books will be interfered with beyond repair.
Right now, when we read a chapter set in the Great Hall, most of us will conjure up the movie version, which was masterfully created by Stuart Craig in 2001. Or we might remember our own variation, still tucked away in the back of our heads since childhood. Be that as it may, when the TV show redesigns the Great Hall for season one – together with every other Hogwarts location – our image of it will be muddled, and the language of Harry’s magical world will change forever.
Be it Gringotts Bank, or Azkaban Prison, everything in the universe is subject to change. And if you only discover the books through the TV show, then it’s game over. You’ll only ever see Harry Potter the way the series frames it. By that time, the movies will be relics of a bygone era. Garry Oldman will be just one of two Sirius Blacks, Professor Snape might look a lot like Kylo Ren and Dumbledore could even be played by the BFG (the studio is reportedly eyeing Mark Rylance for the role).
So, what’s the problem?
Well, that depends on which side of the fence you’re on. If expanding the story of Harry Potter into (at least) seven seasons of TV strikes you as a wonderful idea, then HBO paving over the original movies won’t be an issue. But if you treasure the franchise as we know it, with Dan, Rupert and Emma at the forefront and those iconic locations remaining our primary impression of the Wizarding World, then what’s happening over the next few years might be a tough, dragon shaped pill to swallow.
As shooting begins late next year, with Philosophers Stone and Chamber of Secrets reportedly filming back-to-back, 2025 may well be the final year to experience an untouched Harry Potter world. Before a trailer drops sometime in 2026, there’s no knowing what will come of Francesca Gardiners peculiar potion, but it will make a profit worthy of a mega vault at Gringotts! Sadly, there will be no more 2002 Ron on a 2024 Lego set (no, seriously). It’ll be all-new faces, until they reboot the franchise again.
So it seems that the new kids are breaking into Hogwarts to shake things up and set off some Dr Filibuster’s Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks. Maybe 2025 is the right year to bulk buy Dobby plushies; he’s only going to get a makeover soon.
The Harry Potter series is expected to air in 2026 via HBO.
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros
