It’s been thirteen years since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ended this saga, so it’s time to restart the broadcast. A while ago, he announced that HBO was preparing a new Harry Potter streaming series that would likely last at least seven years, one for each book. But knowing what those streaming series look like those days, maybe it’s more than that.
HBO has announced open casting for the roles of Harry, Hermione and Ron. It’s only open to 9-11 year olds and you’ll need to be in the UK or Ireland, so don’t use fake accents. The actors will also have to be young when casting because this series will last a long time. Daniel Radcliff was 11 years old when the first film was filmed in 2000, then he was 21 years old when the last film was released. So he aged ten years, not seven.
An HBO series is a different matter, as virtually all big-budget streaming shows now have 1. 5 to 2 years between seasons, instead of one. If an actor goes to war at age 11 at the beginning, they would be at least 21 when the final season airs if the gap was a year and a half. If it was closer to 2 years, it would be 25 and it would be 2040+, considering the screen is rarely filming yet. Yes. Hopefully HBO figures out how to over-film this and release those seasons quickly. All of this also assumes that there will be seven seasons, and nothing more.
There is another aspect to this that is no doubt going to create unfortunate controversy. The casting call emphasizes that they will accept all applicants regardless of ethnicity, disability, race, sexual orientation and gender identity. This is a more than standard statement for things like this, but in terms of how this will play out, I’d be shocked if they were brave enough to do a non-white Harry, and Ron is not going to lose his ginger looks. But I am willing to bet that a black actress will play Hermione. JK Rowling previously said that Hermione’s “skin color was never mentioned in the books.” This eventually led to a black actress, Noma Dumezweni, playing Hermoine Granger in a play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Given that it’s 2024 and there’s a lot of racism, there would certainly be significant considerations about it among a safe crowd, and it’s even more damaging because it would be a literal kid gambling the role, and the actors in this scenario are bombarded with racism and harassment. Hopefully, those behind the series are well aware of this and will protect it. Again, I think this update is more or less a guarantee of what the casting will be like.
Finally, there is, of course, the “JK Rowling is now very committed to transphobia” situation, where it’s her calling card since she spends a lot of time on Twitter digging into that hole. This sparked a huge backlash among progressive fans, some of whom disowned the series entirely. However, if we need a first look at how an HBO Harry Potter series might work, I’d take a look at last year’s Hogwarts Legacy, a video game that sparked similar protests about gameplay and earned JK Rowling additional royalties, but was the best. . Best-selling game of the year with 25 million copies.
I’m sure the show will be widely-watched. I am not sure it will be good given the current state of a lot of Max-era productions under new management. We’ll see.
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