The recently announced Harry Potter reboot that’s heading for HBO has left fans asking a number of questions about the future of the existing Harry Potter brand.
Said to be seven seasons long, with each focusing on one Harry Potter novel, the series will be a “decade-long, faithful adaptation” of the beloved book series – an attempt, no doubt, to draw in fans who were disappointed with the fact that the eight Harry Potter films omitted a number of subplots from the books.
Because let’s face it – the idea of a Harry Potter reboot this soon after the main film series came to an end is just weird. But even if we separate it from the films specifically, the brand those films created – you know, the Harry Potter brand as you know it today – is everywhere.
Whether it’s the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter in London, or The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, or the countless waves of merchandise upon shelves in stores all around the world, the existing Harry Potter brand has been going strong for 22 years.
To think that a reboot is just around the corner is one thing, but the idea that it will bring along its own “look” and potentially replace everything we know and love born from the Harry Potter films leaves a bad taste in our mouths. The iconic John Williams score, the design of everything from Hogwarts Castle itself down to the Harry Potter font, simply feels… irreplaceable.
Can you imagine, say, a Jurassic Park reboot without that theme tune? Or without that awesome safari-inspired font? Or the iconic logo with the T-Rex skeleton? Exactly. Heck, it’s going to be a stretch to accept new cast members replacing the likes of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, let alone everything else.
But what does this mean for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios specifically? Everything Harry Potter-related that’s available to us here in the real world boasts the same branding – aesthetics, themes, actors, music, and so on – created by the Harry Potter films.
So, does this mean that the upcoming Harry Potter HBO reboot will “replace” the existing brand? Well, the first question worth asking is whether or not the reboot will even have its own brand, or will it lazily and unimaginatively borrow from the very thing it’s rebooting?
Well, in most cases, reboots do tend to do their own thing, at least from a visual and aesthetic standpoint, but in the case of the Harry Potter television series, we’re not so sure, and this doubt comes from the very first teaser-trailer HBO Max shared a few weeks ago following the official announcement. Check it out below:
Remember what we were just saying about the score, the castle, and the theme? Well, despite announcing that the upcoming series will be a “faithful adaptation of the seven books”, for reasons unknown, Warner Bros. and HBO Max decided to create a teaser that’s about as original as, well, a reboot.
The second question is whether or not the series will prove to be popular. Fans in general have become wise to the ways of things like reboots (remember 2016’s Ghostbusters?), while the Harry Potter fans already seem to be having none of it, whether that’s because divisive author JK Rowling will serve as executive producer, or because a relatively-new film franchise (in film years, that is) is already going under the knife, largely because Warner Bros. completely bungled the Fantastic Beasts spin-off films and don’t know how to move forward, so instead they’ve hit reboot, known also as “panic mode”.
Should the Harry Potter reboot turn out to be a huge success, however, bringing buckets of Galleons in for Warner Bros. and HBO, then we could be looking at a rebranding-of-sorts for the likes of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios.
It’s very unlikely they’ll do away with the existing brand – they’d have to be insane to repurpose an enormous money-maker – but we could see something along the lines of Jurassic World, which has almost taken over the Jurassic Park theme but not entirely.
The best example of this, in fact, can be found at Universal Studios. While signs of Jurassic Park remain, the more “corporate” aesthetic that is Jurassic World has been integrated to a high degree. Might we see the same thing with Harry Potter? Well, for now, based on the teaser-trailer alone, we wouldn’t worry, but in a few years, forget the Battle of Hogwarts – we may see a battle of the brands!
