So how’s the Harry Potter franchise doing nowadays? What does the new regime at Warner Bros. Discovery think should happen with adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s beloved novels, especially with Fantastic Beasts struggling to keep fans’ interest? Well, there is a plan that they want to see take shape, and it’ll involve the end of one series and the start of another that Rowling has previously shot down.
According to Puck, the Fantastic Beasts series of spinoffs is basically dead. Stick a fork in Newt Scamander, Dumbledore and all of his secrets, and Grindelwald and all of his crimes. This isn’t a shock. The first movie got off to a strong start as a prequel to the Harry Potter films, opening in 2016 with $814M worldwide. But things went downhill from there. 2018’s The Crimes of Grindelwald fell to $650M, while this year’s The Secrets of Dumbledore is the first Harry Potter movie to lose money with just $405M.
That has left WBD with a plan to adapt the hit play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, as a two-part movie. However, Rowling has yet to sign off on this, and previously when approached to do this she turned it down. There’s the hope that because Fantastic Beasts was a dud, she’ll now want to reconsider.
So as long as Rowling has something else to fall back on, she refuses to adapt The Cursed Child. Well, she can’t count on that proposed Harry Potter TV series either, because that has also reportedly been canceled.
If Rowling doesn’t change her mind, WBD always has the option of just remaking the original Harry Potter movies, which just sounds like an awful idea. Let’s hope they don’t do that.
