New Harry Potter Show on HBO MAX

[Hellion]

Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Star Wars, MARVEL, Percy Jackson, Alex Rider...for the love of God, start developing Deltora Quest and Song of the Lioness and complete the televisation of my childhood!!!

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Part of this wonders if they're just testing the waters to see how many people whine about JK to see if it's worth it or not. I am sure they WANT to do something on HBO in the Potterverse.

Could be.

I'd say the response is most people want a HP show so long as it's not tied to JKR, what with her being a transphobe, and generally speaking a writer with a single idea that people liked (i.e. Harry Potter).

Obviously eventually they are going to want to adapt the HP series in a reboot/revival somewhere down the line.

Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Star Wars, MARVEL, Percy Jackson, Alex Rider...for the love of God, start developing Deltora Quest and Song of the Lioness and complete the televisation of my childhood!!!

WB has this problem in wanting to convert Harry Potter into Star Wars when it's not Star Wars. Harry Potter doesn't have a sprawling world with a complex deep lore. It's a story about characters with family and friends and the lore such as it exists is about family heirlooms, family secrets, family grudges. (Some smart guy will respond and claim "But Star Wars is that"...part of SW yes, but it's one part among many, whereas in HP it's the main part).

[Hellion]

Could be.

I'd say the response is most people want a HP show so long as it's not tied to JKR, what with her being a transphobe, and generally speaking a writer with a single idea that people liked (i.e. Harry Potter).

Obviously eventually they are going to want to adapt the HP series in a reboot/revival somewhere down the line.



WB has this problem in wanting to convert Harry Potter into Star Wars when it's not Star Wars. Harry Potter doesn't have a sprawling world with a complex deep lore. It's a story about characters with family and friends and the lore such as it exists is about family heirlooms, family secrets, family grudges. (Some smart guy will respond and claim "But Star Wars is that"...part of SW yes, but it's one part among many, whereas in HP it's the main part).

I don't really care if a future HP film/show is tied to JKR or not. How I feel about the artist has no bearing on how I feel about the art. I'll admit that I thought Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts 1 & 2 were crap, but speaking solely for her talent as a writer, it's not out of the realm of possibility that she could strike gold again with that franchise. Her adult novels have all been enjoyable reads.

Not really disagreeing with your point on WB treating HP as Star Wars, but I would argue that Star Wars doesn't have much of a complex, deep lore anymore since Disney decided to scrap the EU canon. Maybe that paints me as too much of an EU purist, but nothing Disney has done with the franchise so far has come close to the excitement I felt reading about the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and the Legacy of the Force series.

[Agent Z]

Could be.

I'd say the response is most people want a HP show so long as it's not tied to JKR, what with her being a transphobe, and generally speaking a writer with a single idea that people liked (i.e. Harry Potter).

Obviously eventually they are going to want to adapt the HP series in a reboot/revival somewhere down the line.



WB has this problem in wanting to convert Harry Potter into Star Wars when it's not Star Wars. Harry Potter doesn't have a sprawling world with a complex deep lore. It's a story about characters with family and friends and the lore such as it exists is about family heirlooms, family secrets, family grudges. (Some smart guy will respond and claim "But Star Wars is that"...part of SW yes, but it's one part among many, whereas in HP it's the main part).

Please understand that I am not trying to diminish this issue but do enough people even know let alone care that Rowling is a transphobe? If being accused of being a wife-beater didn't stop people from seeing Depp's movies, I doubt enough people will care about Rowling still being attached to a Potterverse project.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Please understand that I am not trying to diminish this issue but do enough people even know let alone care that Rowling is a transphobe?

The short answer to this is yes. A whole section of the cast of Harry Potter publicly denounced and distanced themselves from her. So yes enough people do care that she is a transphobe.

If being accused of being a wife-beater didn't stop people from seeing Depp's movies,

Warner Bros. have replaced Johnny Depp as Grindelwald from the upcoming Fantastic Beasts movie. So I think your information is a little out of date on that front.

Not really disagreeing with your point on WB treating HP as Star Wars, but I would argue that Star Wars doesn't have much of a complex, deep lore anymore since Disney decided to scrap the EU canon.

The actual movies by Lucas have deeper lore than HP. You have all these different planets, beings, aesthetic and visual style, teeming with detail.

Whereas in the HP series it's -- Victorian Boarding School but magic, 19th Century Street Arcade but magic, and a bunch of spooky exaggerations of fantasy settings like a gothic castle, a haunted house, a spooky forest, a creepy graveyard.

[Agent Z]

The short answer to this is yes. A whole section of the cast of Harry Potter publicly denounced and distanced themselves from her. So yes enough people do care that she is a transphobe.

I'm talking about potential audience members not just the cast.

Warner Bros. have replaced Johnny Depp as Grindelwald from the upcoming Fantastic Beasts movie. So I think your information is a little out of date on that front.

The allegations against Depp were known before the first FB movie was released as well as the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Well until she's dead or something of that nature nobody can do much of anything with HP without Rowling's direct consent or she would sue them for all that they're worth and win...

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I'm talking about potential audience members not just the cast.

If the cast, with all their agents and publicists and so on, dissociate themselves from JKR then that means you can assume that a significant chunk of the audience cares about this.

The allegations against Depp were known before the first FB movie was released as well as the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

The most recent Pirates movie came out in 2017 and was well in production before the controversy erupted, and it significantly underperformed at the box office, especially the US domestic grosses (which is the essential market for any Hollywood blockbuster). The first Fantastic Beasts movie announced (late into promotion) that Depp was cast as Grindelwald and hinted he'd have a small role in the movie and in the actual film...for most of the movie Colin Farrell plays the guy who turns out to be Grindelwald. So that's not a good indication at all for people not caring about Depp. The sequel to FB also underperformed at the box-office.

Controversies don't always have an immediate direct effect, sometimes it does, but other times it's death-by-a-thousand-cuts, where the hemorrhage and damage happens slowly.

And in any case, for a children's series like HP, with toys, merchandise, and products intended for little kids...if you have authors and people involved in the story one google search away from being revealed to be transphobes or domestic abusers then it creates a knockback loop. The children who grew up with Harry Potter are now in their 30s to mid-20s and so on they likely have children of their own and if they are disillusioned with HP, that means they don't pass it down to their sprogs.

[Jokerz79]

If the cast, with all their agents and publicists and so on, dissociate themselves from JKR then that means you can assume that a significant chunk of the audience cares about this.



The most recent Pirates movie came out in 2017 and was well in production before the controversy erupted, and it significantly underperformed at the box office, especially the US domestic grosses (which is the essential market for any Hollywood blockbuster). The first Fantastic Beasts movie announced (late into promotion) that Depp was cast as Grindelwald and hinted he'd have a small role in the movie and in the actual film...for most of the movie Colin Farrell plays the guy who turns out to be Grindelwald. So that's not a good indication at all for people not caring about Depp. The sequel to FB also underperformed at the box-office.

Controversies don't always have an immediate direct effect, sometimes it does, but other times it's death-by-a-thousand-cuts, where the hemorrhage and damage happens slowly.

And in any case, for a children's series like HP, with toys, merchandise, and products intended for little kids...if you have authors and people involved in the story one google search away from being revealed to be transphobes or domestic abusers then it creates a knockback loop. The children who grew up with Harry Potter are now in their 30s to mid-20s and so on they likely have children of their own and if they are disillusioned with HP, that means they don't pass it down to their sprogs.

Honestly the cast distancing themselves means very little the Entertainment Industry and Corporations think social media represents the real world and usually it doesn't.

[AndrewCrossett]

Was backlash to Orson Scott Card's homophobia the reason the Ender's Game movie flopped? If so, that might give a good idea of how much JKR's TERF position might harm her fandom.

Harry Potter fandom also tends to be more along the "woke" axis than Ender fandom, larger and more organized online, and since JKR herself was seen as a progressive ally there is also the sense of betrayal there. Potter is a heavily fandom-driven franchise.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Honestly the cast distancing themselves means very little the Entertainment Industry and Corporations think social media represents the real world and usually it doesn't.

Harry Potter being the creation of a transphobe is not a social media thing, it's a real world issue.

The cast of HP would never have backed away if it had not been a real world issue.

Was backlash to Orson Scott Card's homophobia the reason the Ender's Game movie flopped?

It probably dampened enthusiasm. Rather than promoting Ender's Game as a classic work of a major writer or promoting it as such, you had to dodge and shuck around the issue of author's homophobia.Nor was it the case that Ender's Game the movie is a blistering satire of the original source the way Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is a piss-take on the Heinlein original (which is super problematic).

Harry Potter fandom also tends to be more along the "woke" axis than Ender fandom, larger and more organized online, and since JKR herself was seen as a progressive ally there is also the sense of betrayal there. Potter is a heavily fandom-driven franchise.

Right.

[Jokerz79]

Harry Potter being the creation of a transphobe is not a social media thing, it's a real world issue.

The cast of HP would never have backed away if it had not been a real world issue.



It probably dampened enthusiasm. Rather than promoting Ender's Game as a classic work of a major writer or promoting it as such, you had to dodge and shuck around the issue of author's homophobia.Nor was it the case that Ender's Game the movie is a blistering satire of the original source the way Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is a piss-take on the Heinlein original (which is super problematic).



Right.

Transphobia is a real world issue, but how many people who care about Rowling and her transphobic views and if those views would stop them from watching a Harry Potter show can't be measured by Social Media that's my point.

Actors and companies comment on issues because they see them trending on Social Media which is great but that doesn't mean most people care even if the vast majority on Social Media do.

[Castle]

Could be.

I'd say the response is most people want a HP show so long as it's not tied to JKR, what with her being a transphobe, and generally speaking a writer with a single idea that people liked (i.e. Harry Potter).

Obviously eventually they are going to want to adapt the HP series in a reboot/revival somewhere down the line.



WB has this problem in wanting to convert Harry Potter into Star Wars when it's not Star Wars. Harry Potter doesn't have a sprawling world with a complex deep lore. It's a story about characters with family and friends and the lore such as it exists is about family heirlooms, family secrets, family grudges. (Some smart guy will respond and claim "But Star Wars is that"...part of SW yes, but it's one part among many, whereas in HP it's the main part).

It's not a direct fair analysis to compare harry potter directly to star wars, star wars is high fantasy, like lord of the rings, its a whole new world and almost if not everything is made up. harry potter is in between low fantasy and high fantasy or let me just say contemporary--urban fantasy, its a made up world within our real world, on paper star wars lore is richer because it creates more.

harry potter at this point has a bigger potential to be more star trek than star wars in lore , the lore of trek is just as rich as star wars but that has taken years and decades of external add ons and multiple spin of shows . it will also take jk rowling giving people the power to start creating more with her wizarding world universe , a series on HBO Max is the perfect foundation.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It's not a direct fair analysis to compare harry potter directly to star wars, star wars is high fantasy, like lord of the rings, its a whole new world and almost if not everything is made up. harry potter is in between low fantasy and high fantasy or let me just say contemporary--urban fantasy, its a made up world within our real world, on paper star wars lore is richer because it creates more.

harry potter at this point has a bigger potential to be more star trek than star wars in lore , the lore of trek is just as rich as star wars but that has taken years and decades of external add ons and multiple spin of shows . it will also take jk rowling giving people the power to start creating more with her wizarding world universe , a series on HBO Max is the perfect foundation.

The thing about HP as a fantasy is that while it's contemporary/urban it's also kind of remote and apart from contemporary urban life. Like the way it works is that you have Muggles and you have Wizards and the Wizarding World, its society, and its culture and people live apart from and don't really affect or influence the real world. Occassionally you get hints (especially in some of the lore Rowling puts out recently) that she wants to explore that side of it more, stuff like Obscurial or whatever.

Harry Potter is a contemporary urban fantasy when it's set in the Dursley chapters at the start and end, when it has Harry and Ron going to school via Flying car, but once the story goes to Hogwarts, or the Ministry, or Hogsmeade it's basically a kind of Discworld environment, or a lasting British quaintness continuing uninterrupted. So Harry Potter is a hybrid inside a hybrid. It's not fully contemporary urban fantasy nor is it fully a constructed world. It goes from one to another.

You can well imagine that someone would basically talk about how magic people have secretly affected the muggle world in all subtle ways and of course Rowling sort of hints that Grindelwald was Hitler's buddy (and Fantastic Beasts uses atomic fears for Gellert's motivations in an over-the-top way) but it doesn't really work because the story can't really answer those questions she belatedly inserts into it. She needs to basically create an entirely new canon to address that.

Harry Potter is fundamentally the story of a magic school. Hogwarts has deep lore but other parts of the wizarding world doesn't.

[OopsIdiditagain]

Was backlash to Orson Scott Card's homophobia the reason the Ender's Game movie flopped? If so, that might give a good idea of how much JKR's TERF position might harm her fandom.

Harry Potter fandom also tends to be more along the "woke" axis than Ender fandom, larger and more organized online, and since JKR herself was seen as a progressive ally there is also the sense of betrayal there. Potter is a heavily fandom-driven franchise.

Ender's Game flopped because it was an ok movie and people at the time were more into Hunger Games type YA movies not space operas. Rick Riordan is "woke" but that didn't stop the Percy Jackson movie from flopping.