Warner Bros is meeting with writers as plans for a ten-year Harry Potter television series continue to move forward.
The story so far. The Harry Potter series of eight movies proved so wildly successful that Warner Bros was keen to get some kind of spin-off going.
Author J K Rowling, someone who it’d be fair to say has attracted some opinions in recent times, duly made the jump from book author to screenwriter, and we got the tepid Fantastic Beasts collection of films. There were supposed to be five of them, but the franchise appears to have stopped at three, with dwindling interest and box office returns seemingly stopping the series in its tracks.
Warner Bros thus decided to go back to the drawing board, and rather than try something new, it now wants a fresh adaptation of Rowling’s novels instead. This time they’re heading for TV, and the idea is that each of the books will provide a season of material for the studio. The series is expected to run for around ten years.
Read this vital article: how to watch the Harry Potter films
Over the weekend came the news that the project is moving at speed too, with the reveal that a bunch of writers are now actively pitching their take on a series to Warner Bros and its Max streaming service. Names that have been mentioned come from both the UK and US, with Kathleen Jordan, Tom Moran, Michael Lesslie and Martha Hillier all in the mix.
The pitch meetings – at least the first round of them – is taking place around now in Los Angeles. Deadline reported the news, although it had no clue as to whether Rowling was involved at this stage. Furthermore, it’ll be interesting to see how involved the author will be and how close to the eventual show’s publicity she’ll be allowed, given how she’s split the Potter fanbase in recent times.
Still, the immediate concern for Warner Bros is finding a pitch – or pitches – that it likes, and only then can a writer properly get down to work penning and overseeing the first season of the show. It’s hard to see how production could begin any sooner than next year, but as we hear more on this, we’ll let you know…
