As much as it’s never going to happen, more franchises should take their cues from Back to the Future, with Robert Zemeckis holding onto the rights and refusing to hand them over until they’re literally pried from his cold, dead hands. Despite being a billionaire, J.K. Rowling remains content to milk the Harry Potter cash cow for all it’s worth, regardless of the backlash.
It seems insane to think that one of the most iconic and beloved properties in the history of pop culture was announced to be getting rebooted as a blockbuster-sized TV show with eyes on spanning a decade, and people are seriously pissed off about it. Of course, that’s what happens when the creator of said mythology has torpedoed her reputation in a very public setting.
Having already made eight Harry Potter movies and watched Fantastic Beasts wither and die on the vine, the spinoff well was looking a little dicey, supposedly leaving Warner Bros. with no choice but to go full reboot. Then again, a fascinating tweet suggests that perhaps Rowling wants the next generation of Potterheads to associate the characters with people who haven’t openly disowned and blasted her beliefs for all to see and hear, leaving her with very few high-profile backers in the industry.
Of course, the mountainous piles of cash she’ll be making would definitely help sway her decision, but launching a full-scale reimagining of an IP that’s so baked into the public consciousness arguably hasn’t happened before on such a scale. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, James Bond, and many others have expanded or evolved, but they’ve never been rebuilt from the ground up in the same way as Harry Potter is preparing to do.
