Fans had difficulty knowing which direction the Harry Potter franchise would take following the most recent Fantastic Beasts film. Now, according to a new report, it appears that the future of the Harry Potter film franchise is nothing more than a reboot.
This news comes via scooper WDW Pro who first shared details about the alleged reboot plans on Twitter. And not only did he state that Warner Bros Discovery wants to reboot the Harry Potter franchise, but that it would include recasting as well.
Here’s what he had to say before sharing additional details:
“WBD is reportedly looking to reboot the Harry Potter film franchise, including recasting, in the next 3-5 years.”
Exclusive Leak: 🔥
WBD is reportedly looking to reboot the Harry Potter film franchise, including recasting, in the next 3-5 years.
We will release some details of how I became aware of this information, presented by a source, on the @ValliantRenegad channel tomorrow morning.
— wdwpro (@wdwpro1) December 23, 2022
As for the additional details, those were shared by the Valliant Renegade YouTube channel. They spoke at a greater length about WBD’s plans for the Harry Potter universe, otherwise called “The Wizarding Division.”
“It now seems extremely likely that the Harry Potter universe, which I think internally is called The Wizarding Division, it is receiving a reboot in the future in terms of the movies.”
“And that may also include recasting some of the roles that have become iconic inside the Harry Potter universe with the major actors and characters,” he added.
Fans might think this means another spin-off series much like Fantastic Beasts. However, this isn’t the case. They specifically mean a new interpretation of the original storyline:
“We’re not talking about Fantastical Beasts. We’re not talking about some of these ancillary Harry Potter things. We’re talking about what is referred to inside the industry as core Harry Potter.”
At this point, they elaborated what “recasting” meant. As it turns out, this refers to new actors for the classic characters associated with the franchise.
“You’re looking at that original cast: Harry, Hermione, Ron. New cast. Starting over.”
However, it was also noted that the project is in the very early stages of development. As such, it might not be as strict of a reboot as expected.
“The way that they reboot this franchise does not have to be your standard fare reboot, where we go back to the origin of the character we’ve already had an adventure with. There are many different ways they could do that and we’re not here to tell you that we know what is yet.
“They’re not even close, I would think, to being at that point,” he continued, “In fact, according to the source they don’t have sort of the James Gunn individual yet in charge of this. That’s part of what they’re aiming for.”
In any case, fans might be wondering why Warner Bros Discovery would ever consider rebooting Harry Potter in the first place. Especially when the original films have become such a respected piece of pop culture. As it turns out, they simply want to revitalize the brand for younger audiences.
“They feel like perhaps the original Harry Potter fandom is kind of aging out and they want to revitalize or refresh this, or make something new to drive new audiences theaters.”
They continued:
“From the standpoint of the OG stuff, the core Harry Potter stuff, I mean it’s a dormant franchise, and that’s particularly why we are being told that in the next three to five years they are looking to reboot this thing.
“Because all the other stuff inside this Potter universe, inside of this Wizarding division at Warner Bros. Discovery, it’s not taking off the way that they need to in order to sustain the franchise,” he elaborated. “And they have far too much invested in the franchise for it to become dormant or secondary. They want it to be a very strong evergreen property. And by that we mean it’s selling all the time, that it’s always the top of mind of consumers.”
Finally, they added:
“And because they have not been able to get the other stuff, these sort of secondary things off the ground and gain that momentum that they had with the originals, the thinking that they have is that it’s time for Hollywood to get over this fear of recasting and so they’re ready to do that,” he concluded.
It seems as though fans will have several years to see how this potential Harry Potter reboot develops. But with the perceived failure of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, this isn’t exactly unbelievable news. The original Harry Potter story was always a big moneymaker for Warner Bros. Now it looks like they might want to more directly revisit the well.