HBO and the boy who prints money

A new trailer for the HBO Harry Potter series dropped yesterday and it is… Well, see for yourself.

First, and I want to be very clear about this; fuck J.K. Rowling. She could have absconded with a perverse sum of cash to some mountain and lived a life of luxury. Instead, she decided to make a marginalised group lives hell. Her actions make partaking in anything Harry Potter morally gross. J.K. - your legacy will be forever tainted.

Anyway, back to the trailer. Having watched it, the same question keeps coming to mind: who is this for?
Is it for children? I don’t think so, as they will be multiple, hour long episodes. I don’t expect kids to sit through multiple hours of TV that’s probably going to be longer than it takes to read the books (well, maybe the three).

Ok, so adults? Maybe, but again it feels weird that 30-something’s will be watching a bunch of 11 year olds go to school. None of this show looks “new”. There’s no exciting new takes on the location or story (apart from some casting decisions). If you’ve read the books and see the movies, who is this for?

This show will be an “interesting” experiment; “Interesting” in the sense that if this works maybe we’ll see remakes of Star Wars™️ or Iron Man™️ sooner rather than later.

Right now, I can’t think of any other franchise that’s been remade like this with modern CGI, smoother writing, and much more “content” (8 hours plus probably). I also suspect the this casts merchandising deal isn’t anywhere near as good as the old ones.

All this to say; the obvious reason for this to exist is money. And I have no doubt it will generate it by the bucket load. It’s a shame that the time, money, and effort on show here isn’t being put into new ideas and projects. Ones without some Turf making more millions.