Max’s “Harry Potter” Series Generates Talk

In the days since Warner Bros. Discovery unveiled its rebranded Max streaming service plans, much of the reactionary talk has been about one particular announcement – the new “Harry Potter” TV series.

Online reaction on social media has been loud, and divisive and drawn some passionate arguments debating not just the obvious controversy surrounding author J.K. Rowling’s personal views but also the series itself.

The Guardian spoke with several Harry Potter fans about their hopes for the series, and the biggest sentiment appears to be one of the hopes that the show will include “everything from the books that were left out of the movies” as one person put it. Others want to get more fan involvement and reaction into the story.

On Twitter, the reaction has been more negative. Quite a few seem to dub it unnecessary; other criticism has been over the announcement title card using the old film font, John Williams theme and Hogwarts design.

Some of the more telling remarks about the future of the franchise came in a Q&A after the conference. WBD chief David Zaslav revealed the studio is “free to do anything we want” with the “Harry Potter” property. He tells Yahoo:

“Some areas we need to do with J.K. [Rowling], other areas we have the full ability to go forward. This is a full deployment on Max of ‘Harry Potter.’ We can still develop other properties.”

That would suggest further “Harry Potter” projects could be in the works sometime in the future as well, ones without Rowling’s involvement. Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, answered a question from a journalist at the Q&A about Rowling’s involvement in the just-announced series and said (via Buzzfeed):

“I don’t think this is the forum [to discuss that]. That’s a very online conversation, obviously very nuanced and complicated and not something we’re going to get into. Our priority is what’s on the screen. Obviously, the Harry Potter story is incredibly affirmative and positive and about love and self-acceptance. That’s our priority – what’s on screen.”

Even with all the fan reaction, Warner Bros. Discovery is sticking with their decision to work with Rowling and the company is currently said to still be looking for a showrunner according to Fox 26. After that, things will start gearing up for writing and then production.