There are some franchises that really grab the attention of audiences young and old, becoming a phenomenal success and generating billions in box office receipts. The Harry Potter saga is a franchise that began as a simple story of a boy discovering his destiny as one of the greatest wizards in the world, but ended up becoming one of the biggest movie sagas of the 21st century. Now, just 14 years after the main movie saga came to an end, HBO are about to reboot the story with a lavish new TV series, even if some people are struggling to see why. The argument against the need for the new series seems to have found unexpected support from the movies themselves as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has magicked itself a place among the most watched movies on HBO Max this week.
Released in 2001, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (released in the U.K. as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) arrived in cinemas with an all-star cast led by a young trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint and a strong fandom of youngsters wanting to see the adventures of the young wizard play out on screen four years after the debut of J.K. Rowling’s novel. With a moderate $125 million budget, Warner Bros. had a lot of faith in Harry Potter and it proved well-founded as the film became the highest grossing movie of the year, blasting past $1 billion and kick-starting what would turn into one of the biggest movie franchises of all time. It seems that even after 25 years, the Harry Potter story is always worth a watch, and its resurgence on HBO Max is proof enough of that.
Reboots and remakes are nothing new in Hollywood, but there is often a grace period of a few decades between them. With the final Harry Potter movie only being released in 2011, there are many fans of those films that really don’t see the point in another version of the story being told via a television series. However, that has been the least of the show’s challenges, with the constant social media backlash against Rowling taking a more prominent position of concern. The author’s well-documented opinions on transgender rights have often led to clashes between her and her fans, as well as some of the actors made famous by the Harry Potter movies. When HBO originally announced the series, they tried to distance themselves from Rowling’s controversial online comments, but that hasn’t stopped calls for the show to be boycotted.
In reality, when Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone lands on HBO Max for its two-hour premiere on Christmas Day, it is guaranteed to become the biggest series debut of the year, possibly the decade. Once the initial reactions to the show’s recasting choices of key characters had passed, the vast majority of people have been happy to sit back and wait to give their opinions on the show once it debuts and not just on the trailers and images released so far. Whatever the reviews say, HBO is in it for the long haul with Harry Potter as the second season is already in production and it is impossible to see anything happening that would stop all seven novels being adapted in a decade long plan for the franchise. Whether you are a full-on Potterhead or a complete muggle, it will be hard to avoid the rebirth of the story of the boy who lived this winter, so you might as well just grad your Nimbus 2000 and buckle in for the ride.
Are you looking forward to the Harry Potter TV series, or is it too soon after the movies for the franchise to be getting a reboot? Let us know in the comments.
