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‘Harry Potter’, ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Dead as Wizarding World Franchise Reportedly Ends

‘Harry Potter’, ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Dead as Wizarding World Franchise Reportedly Ends​



It may all be over for Harry Potter and the Wizarding World as fans know it, as shocking claims from Warner Bros. seemingly confirm the end of the franchise.

At one time, the Harry Potter series was the jewel in Warner Bros.’s crown. The story about the boy wizard, his journey to the magical Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and battle against Lord Voldemort first entered the pop culture sphere way back in 1997 when author JK Rowling released the first book in her novel series, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.

What followed was a best-selling book series and a movie franchise that brought in billions. The potential of the Wizarding World truly seemed endless, but over the last couple of years, the once sparkling Harry Potter enterprise has lost support from millions worldwide due to the continued controversy surrounding Rowling, as well as disputes around actors like Johnny Depp and Ezra Miller — both of whom star in the Harry Potter spinoff franchise, Fantastic Beasts.

That's a little surprising to hear. I'll be honest in that I was never a fan of Harry Potter. To be honest I never liked it but I liked the concept. I just didn't like the execution at least as far as the movies go. Which is kind of sad because I wanted to like this since I love things about sorcery, and strange haunted castles with moving stairways and whatnot. Well I guess I got the sanctum sanctorum from Dr Strange.

There were aspects I always found interesting and really like, like the Victorian style of fairy lore for instance and things like the Dementors.

Funny enough, that new Harry Potter game actually looks really good and I would be willing to even buy and play it. Like I said, I like the concept but not the execution so much as the movies go. As for a video game like the one coming out, that may be a lot of fun.

But I can understand how this upsets fans. I didn't think Harry Potter would be pretty much this dead to people now. Is it Marvel? Has that overpowered the little sorcerer and his world of strange creatures?
 
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jason10mm

Gold Member
I can think of about 0.1% of people who think the JK Rowling "controversy" turns them off of Harry Potter. NO ONE gives a shit.

The new movies were just boring. The concept is poorly thought out and the world building is kinda shit, if I'm being honest. So no wonder stuff outside of the OG films doesn't really hold up.

But if they hand it off to someone who can hammer it into an internally consistent narrative that can pull up the quirky stuff and the overall themes that appealed to folks and ditch to nonsensical garbage then I think you'd see 'Arry Potta' as #1 again. But I think JK is very protective of her work so that seems unlikely to happen.
 

Saber

Gold Member
Fantastic is just a boring series of films in the universe of Harry Potter that tried miserably catch the audience in the last sequel, by adding Dumbdore.

Harry Potter itself still pretty fucking popular. I doubt this lamish Fantastic Beast crap would affect HP, let alone what people would call "controversy".

I heard a rumor that WB is trying to bring HP back to the movies, perhaps by adaptating the life of Harry Potter character after the events of the last movie(meaning it would be about their children, which already exists btw).
 
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I can think of about 0.1% of people who think the JK Rowling "controversy" turns them off of Harry Potter. NO ONE gives a shit.

The new movies were just boring. The concept is poorly thought out and the world building is kinda shit, if I'm being honest. So no wonder stuff outside of the OG films doesn't really hold up.

But if they hand it off to someone who can hammer it into an internally consistent narrative that can pull up the quirky stuff and the overall themes that appealed to folks and ditch to nonsensical garbage then I think you'd see 'Arry Potta' as #1 again. But I think JK is very protective of her work so that seems unlikely to happen.
When I wrote this, I actually forgot about that stupid controversy with JK Rowling and the whole trans community thing.

That can't be what's killing it off?
 
Fantastic is just a boring series of films in the universe of Harry Potter that tried miserably catch the audience in the last sequel, by adding Dumbdore.

Harry Potter itself still pretty fucking popular. I doubt this lamish Fantastic Beast crap would affect HP, let alone what people would call "controversy".

I heard a rumor that WB is trying to bring HP back to the movies, perhaps by adaptating the life of Harry Potter character after the events of the last movie(meaning it would be about their children, which already exists btw).
I thought all the Harry Potter movies were boring but I've heard the Fantastic blBeasts ones actually are so that's got to be something there. I actually wanted to watch a Fantastic Beast movie because it seemed to focus more on adults but now that I hear that it's even more dull than Harry Potter itself....
 

octiny

Banned
Harry Potter as a franchise itself will never be dead. Hell, they even said they wanted to make more of them as of a few days ago.


All comes down to JK & most of the cast actually wanting to return.

Regarding the Fanastic Beats franchise, the first Fantastic Beats movie was good but the other two were trash. Also doesn't help that Depp was let go in the 3rd one & that it was an absolute box office bomb making only 400m WW (needed around 550 million WW to break even off its 200m production budget).
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Bizarre article considering their CEO just said that he wants to bring back Harry Potter. All JK has to do is write more books.

Fantastic Beasts might be done because the last one flopped.
 

ADiTAR

ידע זה כוח
The last movie in the franchise was awful. It was as if the writers wrote it for themselves and they knew what's going on, but not the audience actually watching the movie.

I love the HP universe, and I think they should rethink it and maybe it's time to find good writers to outline a charismatic story.
 

bitbydeath

Member
Harry Potter as a franchise itself will never be dead. Hell, they even said they wanted to make more of them as of a few days ago.

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All comes down to JK & most of the cast actually wanting to return.

Regarding the Fanastic Beats franchise, the first Fantastic Beats movie was good but the other two were trash. Also doesn't help that Depp was let go in the 3rd one & that it was an absolute box office bomb making only 400m WW (needed around 550 million WW to break even off its 200m production budget).
Was going to post this, this rumour is a dud.
 

Yoboman

Member
I'm amazed Rowling wrote such enjoyable books to begin with cause her writing has been shit on these movies
 

Yoboman

Member
I mean they could do a different spin-off besides Fantastic Breasts.

Something that takes place in the near future or some cool prequel. They should maybe do something fun and not so dark and dull.

I mean, they have an entire land at Universal Studios for this shit. That alone is surprising they're abandoning the franchise.
If you've seen how bad the story of the Cursed Child is then it's best to leave it alone
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
Ezra Miller Magic GIF by Regal
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
Considering the sheer number of fans, Warner walking away from the franchise would be one of the single most retarded moves they could make. Anything decent would print fucking money.


Standard large corporation mindset.

Make movie XYZ, budget that it will make a predicted 100M profit.

Movie only makes 50M profit so for them its a "loss" and they try to find the next whale to make insane profit.
 

Lord Panda

The Sea is Always Right
I mean they could do a different spin-off besides Fantastic Breasts.

Something that takes place in the near future or some cool prequel. They should maybe do something fun and not so dark and dull.

I mean, they have an entire land at Universal Studios for this shit. That alone is surprising they're abandoning the franchise.

That would certainly be a bold, and welcome, direction for Warner Bros.
 

UnNamed

Banned
Create a new franchise with Fantastic Beasts without books to support it was a hard challenge. Maybe 2 or 3 movies were OK, but 5 was clearly an overestimation.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Fantastic beast was terrible honestly no clue who thought that was a good idea. Harry potter at the end also got milked to death so yea not surprising.
 
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kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
JK didn't write the FB movies

According to IMDB JK Rowling wrote the screenplay for the first movie and co-wrote the screenplay for the third movie. The IMDB credits for the second movie mysteriously say "J.K. Rowling (based upon characters created by)". On the other hand, she's listed as the sole author of the published illustrated screenplay of "The Crimes of Grindelwald".
 
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Tams

Gold Member
Lol at blaming the author and actors.

It's been their shitty choice of writers and directors. Maybe if they'd properly roped Rowling into writing it out more than a novella for charity (not the co-writing bullshit), it might have been great. Though less of the Cursed Child Harry Potter shit.

Also a lack of ambition if they were trying go milk the franchise. Where was the quidditch film? What about a political thriller involving the Ministry of Magic? You could do a wizard/witch detective series. Geez.

That and Harry Potter has come and gone. The main craze is over. But it's still appealling and mostly timeless, especially as young adult/teenager content, so can easily be a reasonably selling evergreen franchise.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
I did a quick look and it looks like Rowling is writing adult fiction now under the pen name of Robert Galbraith. She is only 57, I think we have at least one extra Harry Potter-related series coming up.

GRRM be like:

Do It Episode 3 GIF by Star Wars
 

Saiyan-Rox

Member
This is what happens when you try to cash in on a one hit wonder.

Why on earth they decided to shoe horn in the whole Dumbledore and Grindelwald story along with the finished fantastic beasts story is just beyond me.

I swear if there's one thing that's happened in the last 10y or so it's the massive decline of good writing.
 

Nankatsu

Gold Member
Fantastic Beasts started to derail the minute they took Johny Deep of the cast.

The final touch was making Dumbledore gay.
 

Kimahri

Banned
Their mistake is not making movies for kids. They need to aim for the same vibe as the first books/movies, and ignore the more mature themes.

Just go for fun and whimsy and you'll have millions of kids dressed as wizards running to the theatre.
 

GreenAlien

Member
"Harry Potter enterprise has lost support from millions worldwide"


Harry Potter fan-fiction is still going strong, so I don't see it. The main problem is that Rowling isn't a good screenwriter..
 

LordCBH

Member
Well, he was a sensitive, umarried old guy who loved dressing up in purple dresses and the only thing we know about his past is that he spent a romantic summer with a hot albanian boy. They never say it outright, but it's not exactly out of the blue.

The very first time she came out and said “dumbledore is gay” my first thought was “no shit. Dudes fabulous and flamboyant as fuck”
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
Their biggest mistake was hiring David Yates as director. The quality of the HP movies crashed quick and hard with him at the direction, only Deathly Hallows part 1 was somewhat enjoyable. Keeping him for FB doomed the project from the get go, never mind the dull casting for the first movie and Eddie Redmayne going for a very quirky take on the main character. Nothing in the first FB is remotely memorable, everyone looks and acts like they’re drugged to the ears. The second movie is absolutely incomprehensible if you aren’t more than versed in the HP lore. The people who saw it at the theater with me didn’t understand a fucking thing about the story. I didn’t see the third movie, I don’t need to watch it to know it can’t be better.
 

iorek21

Member
First thing producers should understand is what made HP what it is.

Teen fantasy school drama. That’s it.

Of course, Rowling’s lore got a lot more than that, but the major thing for HP was the school daily life that appealed to so many young readers back in the day.
 
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