There’s been a lot of chatter about HBO and Warner Bros. remaking J.K. Rowling’s beloved wizarding series roughly 15 years after the final movie in the franchise came out. Some people are pumped about the upcoming Harry Potter TV series, and some are opposed, but if you were to ask original franchise director Chris Columbus how he feels, he’d tell you it’s a great idea. If you need any convincing, he also shared the reason why he thinks making a show for those with a Max Subscription will really work, and it honestly checks out.
Per Columbus, just getting the chance to retell the story in more detail is a “fantastic” prospect. The famous director of other great films like Home Alone and Stepmom explained why, telling People the idea of a longform narrative is really exciting.
The fact that they have the leisure of [multiple] episodes for each book, I think that’s fantastic. You can get all the stuff in the series that we didn’t have an opportunity to do … all these great scenes that we just couldn’t put in the films.
Columbus also said he tried really hard to weave as much as he could into his Harry Potter movies, but not everything made it. He directed the first two installments of the franchise, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, before moving onto other projects and other franchises.
He said his movies ran long because he was trying to “get as much of the book in as possible.” However, there was only so much he could do given he was allotted less than three hours apiece to share the contents of two massive books (books in a series that honestly got thicker as that series wore on).
I think it’s a spectacular idea, because there’s a certain restriction when you’re making a film. Our film was two hours and 40 minutes, and the second one was almost as long.
It’s a fair point. There have been some complaints about the way the movies portrayed certain facets of the books on the big screen. (In fact, there have even been some complaints from Harry Potter actors about their portrayals.) So, this is a chance to do things over in a more detailed way. … At least if they do it right.
If you’ve been paying attention to the Harry Potter casting rumors and more in recent weeks, you have probably also noticed that everyone (and their mother) involved with the original series at some point has been getting asked about what Warner Bros. is trying to do with the reboot. We’ve heard from Bonnie Wright about how weird the prospect of possibly returning would be, though she expressed excitement over the show too. We’ve heard from Ralph Fiennes about why he’s “not surprised” it’s happening, and so on and so forth. No matter what people think, the inevitable conclusion is the new series is coming, and it’s coming along the pipeline relatively quickly compared to some other TV projects.
We’ve seen magic go horribly wrong in the Harry Potter universe, but hopefully the upcoming streaming series will be a charming example of the streamer playing its cards right. For sure there’s plenty of interest now that casting has been underway and thousands of children have reportedly signed up for the privilege of auditioning for Harry Potter and co. Stay tuned as more magical news breaks.
This post was originally published on here
