Potential for a Harry Potter Television Series

There have been a lot of times that I’ve heard people say how disappointing certain aspects of the Harry Potter films are in terms of replicating the books. I have always dismissed these complaints because I am well aware that the novels and the movies should be separated, but I think to dismiss one particular idea that a few people have put forth is plainly ignorant.

Over the years I have continually heard one way for the Harry Potter series to be remade but not as a film version, but for television. It was only recently that I actually took this idea seriously. The reason was the success of the “Game of Thrones” series.

The “A Song of Ice and Fire” series is definitely a lot bigger and far more involved than the Potter series, and yet it makes for quite a good television series. I figure that if it works for them, why not the Potter books.

The idea is simple. For the first three books (the smallest of the seven) there can be ten half-hour episodes and for the remaining four it can be ten hour-long episodes. This gives an extra three hours on top of the two hours of the film versions for the first three and an extra eight hours for the remaining four books.

Some may question whether or not there is enough content in the books to warrant this, but I can see it happening. Especially if they took off from the Harry-centric nature of the books and films and added some scenes in for other characters. I would imagine that J.K. Rowling could actually help if she wanted to do so.

I think it could also help in terms of casting. Some people have complained that, in the films, the characters don’t seem to be the correct ages, something which I find very petty but I do see the point. The series which spans seven years took ten years to make and people, particularly children and teenagers, age quite a bit over that time span. With this type of television show, it would only take seven years to make, meaning that they would all age in the correct time span, giving a more accurate version.

The downsides to this idea are easy to see. With the story being as it is, it requires quite a number of younger actors, meaning there is a lot of rules that need to be abided by in terms of what can be done with the child actors.

Another problem could be the fact that the fans of the series that have complained about the movies will probably be unhappy with any casting that doesn’t include the actors from the films. And, given the nature of film vs. television acting, it would be doubtful that any of the original cast would return for a television series. Maybe a few would. Evanna Lynch (portrayed Luna Lovegood in the films) is one that I could see returning as her character, but not many others, especially the younger actors.

Evanna Lynch as "Luna Lovegood"

I guess the question, ultimately, is “would Harry Potter work as a television series?”. I think that it absolutely would! I think it could even become the most watched television show of all time. If it was done well. If it were to be done, it would need to be extremely well done otherwise people, namely the fans, would complain. But it wouldn’t matter anyway, because the type of people that complain about these things will always watch it anyway because they wouldn’t be able not to.

Do I want this to happen? Honestly, I couldn’t care less if it does or not. If it happens, great! If it doesn’t, I’m not going to care. The movies are fine.

~Benjamin~