JK Rowling Writing a Harry Potter Spin-Off Movie?
Well I guess JK Rowling has gotten bored writing books that aren’t Harry Potter-related (crime, yawn), so she’s heading back to the wizarding world to adapt a Potter spin-off book she’s already written.
She’s going to turn “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” into a movie for Warner Bros. She wrote the title under the pseudonym “Newt Scamander,” and he’s the star of the story, which is set 70 years before the events of Harry Potter. Here’s what Rowling had to say about the project:
“Although it will be set in the worldwide community of witches and wizards where I was so happy for seventeen years, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world,” said Rowling. “The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to anyone who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the films, but Newt’s story will start in New York, seventy years before Harry’s gets underway.”
I’m guessing he won’t STAY in New York, as how many beasts are there really hidden there, but it’s a far cry from the English setting of the other films to be sure. So it’s set in the Harry Potter world, just with none of the characters we like because none of them have even been born yet. Perhaps we’ll get a sneak peak at toddler Dumbledore, but that’s probably about it.
I don’t know, more Harry Potter is good, even if it’s lacking Harry Potter. More pressingly, it’s lacking Hermione, which is obviously the bigger tragedy.
I know that a LOT of people on the Internet love to pine about Harry Potter being over and wish that a new book or series would come out, but the hard truth of the matter is that the world doesn’t NEED any more Harry Potter. The books (and the movies based on them) make up a perfectly executed, perfectly developed, self-contained, self-fulfilled story arc that persists as a cultural phenomenon. Harry Potter is complete, as-is, and it has reached the end of its natural lifespan.
Rowling isn’t writing the scripts because she wants to continue her legacy. Rowling is writing the scripts because Warner Brothers knows that HP is a gold mine and will continue to beat that piñata until it stops producing candy.
I’m glad it’s not a sequel, and that it won’t contain any HP characters. Actually, I’m kind of intrigued, for the first time in several years.
When I started reading the books, what really interested me was the whole wizarding world, all the little history tidbits and stuff. The later books got more and more focused on the main characters, the world narrowed down, and to me it just lost its magic.
I’d like to see the HP universe expand the way Discworld did. There’s so many stories that can be told (though I’d prefer them in book form and not Hollywood movies, but whatever), Harry & co. being just one episode in the grand scheme of things.