Film adaptation of HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD in the works?

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 3/5/21 at 11:58am

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/warnermedia-chief-jason-kilar-teases-mysterious-harry-potter-sequels

"And on the movie front, there's talk Warner Bros. could be developing a new tentpole based on the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child stage play. Discussion about possible sequels for Harry Potter — whose rights Warner Bros. controls along with creator J.K. Rowling — came as Kilar was talking about the creative fortunes going forward for Warner Bros."

Thoughts? Remember, the play is a combined 5-6 hours between both parts.

[thedrybandit]

Posted: 3/5/21 at 12:04pm

If they were going to do something based on Cursed Child, it could be adapted into a two-parter or a trilogy, but it would lose a lot of the magic that you feel while watching it on stage. This show has always been about the experience, and I'm not sure how they would translate certain moments (keeping it spoiler free, but the effects that make it worth seeing the show live) to the screen.

[Owen22]

Posted: 3/5/21 at 12:43pm

I don't want to see this until the original Big Three are old enough and agree to do it (yes, I know stage Hermoine is black...I don't care....it MUST be Emma or I'm not watching.)

[JBroadway]

Posted: 3/5/21 at 12:50pm

Wow, they're really riding this out to the bitter end, aren't they? The Harry Potter IP has been hemorrhaging relevance for years. Even before JK Rowling revealed herself to be massive transphobe, she was proving to be a poor caretaker of her own stories. I'm temped to say that someone should just buy her out of the rights, so they can salvage this property the way Disney did with George Lucas. But I hate the idea of anyone giving her another red cent. Although I guess if she does get bought out, she can comfortably retire in disgrace and let us all forget about her and her TERF manifesto. 

[sparksatmidnight]

Posted: 3/6/21 at 11:31am

I bet there are a lot of people who would give their right hand to "hemorrhage relevance" with an Oscar, 11 Olivier Award nominations (or the play with most nominations ever), with 9 wins, including Best Play - the absolute Olivier record for any kind of production, 10 Tony Award nominations and 6 wins, including Best Play, 4 major productions running around the world with three more announced (and who know what else might have happened if we didn't have a pandemic), record breaking box office on Broadway, actors who haven't basically acted since they have been on Harry Potter breaking Instagram records only by opening an account, becoming one of the internet's most talked subjects just because there were rumours of a TV show, having the trailer of a game becoming the fastest viewed PlayStation trailer, a brand new 1.5 billion movie franchise with only two movies that doesn't even carry the main name of the franchise on the title (both of which were in the biggest 10 box offices of the years they were released in), new editions of the main books coming out basically every year and still going to Amazon's best sellers list... and all of that in the past 5 years alone. Do you need me to go on?

 

As for the film adaptation of Cursed Child, I don't think we're quite there yet. I can actually see a mini-series, with each act becoming a chapter. Or the release of the filmed production first and a movie adaptation a few years down the line.

Updated On: 3/6/21 at 11:31 AM

[JennH]

Posted: 3/6/21 at 2:06pm

JBroadway said: "Wow, they're really riding this out to the bitter end, aren't they?The Harry Potter IP has been hemorrhagingrelevance for years. Even before JK Rowling revealed herself to be massive transphobe, she was proving to be a poor caretaker of her own stories. I'm temped to say that someone should just buy her out of the rights, so they can salvage this property the way Disney did with George Lucas. But I hate the idea of anyone giving her another red cent. Although I guess if she does getbought out, she can comfortably retire in disgrace and let us all forget about her and her TERF manifesto."

The one thing I disagree here with is Disney and Star Wars...do you genuinely believe Disney salvaged it? The vast majority of the fandom do not...myself included. I still think Lucas allowing it to be taken off his hands was a terrible idea and led to nothing but the usual crappy storytelling via corporate synergy. 

But yeah I really don't think this would translate well to screen even I wanted to see it on screen. But....if it does happen for some insane reason, I do agree that waiting for the golden trio themselves is the best way to go about it. However, they've also called JKR out for her nonsense, so I wonder if they'd even want to do it in the first place. And that's aside from them clearly all wanting to move on from the Potterverse just generally. 

[Fosse76]

Posted: 3/6/21 at 2:35pm

Owen22 said: "I don't want to see this until the original Big Three are old enough and agree to do it (yes, I know stage Hermoine is black...I don't care....it MUST be Emma or I'm not watching.)"

Daniel Radcliffe is nearly 32 years old. He is the same age now as Harry in the epilogue, which is the opening scene of the play. 

Updated On: 3/6/21 at 02:35 PM

[LesWickedly]

Posted: 3/6/21 at 2:43pm

Fosse76 said: "Owen22 said: "I don't want to see this until the original Big Three are old enough and agree to do it (yes, I know stage Hermoine is black...I don't care....it MUST be Emma or I'm not watching.)"

Daniel Radcliffe is nearly 32 years old. He is the same age now as Harry in the epilogue, which is the opening scene of the play."

Just have to correct you there, Harry is 37 in the epilogue but most of the play takes place while he is 40. 

[JBroadway]

Posted: 3/6/21 at 3:11pm

JennH said: "The one thing I disagree here with is Disney and Star Wars...do yougenuinely believe Disney salvaged it? The vast majority of the fandom do not...myself included. I still think Lucas allowing it to betaken off his hands was a terrible idea and led to nothing but theusual crappy storytelling via corporate synergy." 

 

I think they re-vitalized the brand for the general public. Die-hard Harry Potter fans will always love Harry Potter, and die-hard Star Wars fans will always love (or love to hate) Star Wars. But in terms of broad, mainstream popularity among casual fans, I think Disney has done a great job with the brand. Even with their blunders, they've put Star Wars back on the map in a big way. And made the public hungry for new Star Wars content in a way that Warner Brothers has not managed to replicate.

Just look at Fantastic Beats - what a sh*tshow. At least with the Star Wars sequel trilogy there was some cultural conversation, a level passion behind both the pros and the cons. Fantastic Beasts is just a flailing, sinking ship that only a small group of people actually care about. 

Those who followed the weekly Broadway grosses in 2019 know that Cursed Child was still selling pretty well by the standards of a normal Broadway show, but they were grossing only half of what they had been making earlier. And they were having to fight tooth and nail to keep it that way, so they could make a profit with their high running cost. There were tickets available at dirt-cheap prices all the time, and they were resorting to huge marketing gimmicks like the Times Square takeover. 

I'm not saying that Harry Potter isn't still a huge, profitable franchise. Obviously it is. I'm sure the people with skin in the game are not worried about where their next meal is coming from. But the brand is on the wane in terms of the general public's awareness and enthusiasm, which might be fine if they were just content to sit back and let the money keep trickling in (by comparison) from their existing properties. But they're clearly trying to compete with Star Wars and Marvel as brands with a fruitful future in new content, and they're not where they want to be on that front. 

 

[Islander_fan]

Posted: 3/7/21 at 6:58am

I remember reading somewhere that they were thinking of a spinoff movie with the character Hermione. Warner Brothers said that they would still want to make the film even if Emma Watson says she isn’t interested in doing so. But, there are so many people who, when it comes to the movies at least, feels that it must be Emma Watson or bust. I fear that if they do recast due to Watson not being interested in the project, they are going to really hurt themselves financially not to mention pissing off the fan base as well.

Also, regarding Fantastic Beasts. While Rowling did the script for the movie, I remember her getting a question about why she only came up with a very detailed story for Cursed Child and not write the play. She spoke about how you can be a good writer in one form of writing but not so good at another. She can write a novel, we all know that. But, there’s nothing wrong with her saying that she is not one that can write a good play. That’s all well and good. However, she said that and yet she writes the scripts for the Fantastic Beast movies. And, I gotta tell you, it shows in the scripts for the movies that she has no idea how to write a good screenplay

[GiantsInTheSky2]

Posted: 3/7/21 at 7:27am

I agree with JBroadway. Of course, this is just my real life experience, but people continue to talk about Star Wars. It comes up in conversation, it’s referenced, people have opinions. With Harry Potter, people talk about it in past tense with a slight tinge of, “Oh yeah, I was really into that when I was younger.”

I completely forgot Fantastic Beasts ever happened, and Cursed Child is great, but I don’t think it’s going to make much of an impact on the legacy in the long run.

Disney, for better or for worse, has kept Star Wars alive and thriving in the zeitgeist. They opened Star Wars lands in their theme parks in 2019, for God’s sake.

I also agree with thedrybandit, not sure how the magic of the show would translate on screen. It would certainly flatten special effects a lot.

[JennH]

Posted: 3/7/21 at 9:32am

GiantsInTheSky2 said: I completely forgot Fantastic Beasts ever happened, and Cursed Child is great, but I don’t think it’s going to make much of an impact on the legacy in the long run.
 

I'm guessing you mean "happening"? We still have 3 crappy films left...I remember seeing the first and it was like meeting an old friend after a while that you can tell has changed, but with a nice sense of familiarity. It wasn't bad, but it was decent and I enjoyed it. Then the second one happened...I couldn't get past the retconning everywhere, it's like she didn't even remember her own canon, it even made Cursed Child look plausible, canon wise. I don't need to mention the very end of that second film for those who've seen it...

Like JBroadway mentioned, she's now a poor caretaker of her own stories who's fallen into the trap of constantly tweaking them to stay relevant. She knows she can't write anything else because none of her other works have done as well. Cuckoo's Calling only began to sell well AFTER she was outed as 'Galbraith'. How the rest of that series has done, I'm not sure because I don't pay nearly as much attention to the Potterverse as I used to (almost none) which makes what "Giants" said all the more true....the Potter generation (I include myself) is starting to talk about it in the past tense. I feel like that started before revealing herself as a TERF, but once she did, it was all downhill from there. The whole Potterverse has left a sour taste in my mouth and there's also personal reason for that on my end, but once we found out she's a TERF...I can't speak of Potter with any of the enthusiasm I used to. It saddens me because like many a millennial, it was home and a place for us weirdos to escape to. We learned the danger of "othering" from her and we took it to heart. I usually re-read the books every 2 or so years but now just seeing them on my shelf makes me sad, knowing all the above. I just hope she accounts for her mistaken views one day and does better.

 

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 3/7/21 at 10:30am

The play itself is terrible. It brings one of the worst elements of the franchise (the time turner) to the forefront for a second time, leading to a mess of a story. Additionally, the characters are weakly drawn, especially the three main characters from the original novels. The only thing Cursed Child has going for it is the spectacle created by it's incredible stage craft, and that would be lost if brought to the screen; instead, the weaknesses of the play would be front-and-center, and the convoluted mess that it is would be all too apparent. We already have the messy prequels, I don't think we are in need of an equally messy sequel.

[Theatrefanboy1]

Posted: 3/7/21 at 11:22am

I would only be interested in this if the original cast were included. I would like to somehow see for the brief moments Vernon Dursley or Snape are in it that they use digital archival sound and visuals to create recreate the two of them.

But I want all of the film cast back for it; Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Imelda Staunton.. everyone