In the wake of Fantastic Beasts flopping and J.K. Rowling doing her best to actively besmirch her legacy, Warner Bros. is attempting to reawaken the world’s love for Harry Potter by… remaking the movies that people love so much? If you think that sounds like a pretty riddikulus move, you’re not the only one as HBO Max’s announcement of a new TV series faithfully adapting all seven novels has gone down about as well online as a puking pastille.
The decision to re-adapt the books, a mere 12 years since the final film arrived, is being torn apart on various grounds, ranging from Rowling’s direct involvement to the controversy surrounding potential race-swapping casting. And yet maybe there’s one big logistical problem that is the real reason the Harry Potter series is doomed before it even begins. As a viral tweet from Twitter user @EPM106 argued, a long-form serialized adaptation of the novels is “just not feasible with today’s television model.”
The tweeter’s argument goes that “CGI heavy franchise TV seasons now have two year gaps between seasons minimum,” which is a huge commitment when you consider that a young cast could conceivably have to commit to a full 15 years on the job. As the user pointed out, “You cannot recreate the ‘growing up with the cast’ feeling when every actor is in their 30s for season 7.”
We’ve already seen a similar situation play out with Netflix’s Stranger Things, with production on that known to have been something of a grueling endeavor for its cast, and that’s only lasted for five seasons. If whoever replaces Daniel Radcliffe as our new Boy Who Lived is say, 13 when they are cast, it genuinely is entirely possible they will be pushing 30 once they eventually kill Lord Voldemort (er, whoops, spoilers). At least they won’t have any problems aging them up for the flash-forward ending scene.