It was announced to lukewarm reception last year that Warner Bros. was looking to make the Harry Potter series into a TV series adapting the books once again. According to Deadline, the pitches and fervor for that series are heating up at the moment. There are several writers making pitches for the rights to adapt the seven Harry Potter books.
Martha Hillier, Kathleen Jordan, Tom Moran, and Michael Lesslie are among the people making presentations to Warner Bros Television and Max. It looks like they might be breaking the “only British” rule that they had for the original films because that’s a nice mix of Americans and Brits. Max commissioned a group of writers to create pitches for a series reflecting their take on the IP.
The first round of meetings was this week in Los Angeles, and the top choices will move on to the next round in the UK. What is not clear is how involved J.K. Rowling will be with the project. She lives in Edinburgh, and apparently is expected to be involved in the decision-making on the series, as an executive producer.
The silver lining for the writers making pitches is that Max is looking to make more than one Harry Potter idea into a reality, so if they miss out, they can still be considered for different projects.
The Harry Potter series will be produced by Brontë Film and TV, the production company chaired by Rowling’s agent Neil Blair, and Warner Bros Television. The pair will exec produce with Brontë CEO Ruth Kenley-Letts and David Heyman, who produced the movies, was in talks to exec produce.
Warner Bros. is certainly looking to cash in on their rights to the Harry Potter series. So, do you think that they should make a new version of Harry Potter this close to when we had the film series? Can they do better?
The last thing we saw from the Wizarding World was the Fantastic Beasts series which grossed $1.8 billion at the box office, but ended on a flat note with the third film.
We’ll have to see as this story develops.
For more on TV News, make sure to check back to That Hashtag Show.
Source: Deadline
