Having been to the Harry Potter Studio Tour at Leavesden, I now know exactly what went in to making the movies (spoiler alert: it's a lot!), and I am incredibly impressed. That said, I'm still all about an eventual remake putting a fresh spin on the story!
While covering the press conference for Hypable.com, I had a chance to sit down withPotter producer David Heyman, and he confirmed that there are no current plans to remake the films, although he wouldn't rule it out some 20 years down the line. I just hope, whenever the inevitable Harry Potter remake is released, that I'm alive to see it.
Whenever I'm "outed" as a Potter fan, I always feel obligated to say, "Yes, but I'm a fan of the books, soooo." Not because I don't love the movies, I do. But they're just not the books - as of course they can't and shouldn't be - and it's the books I fell in love with.
Look. This column might make people mad. That's fine, I get it. Hey, I supported Harry Potter in the great Oscars race of 2012, I'll be the first to hate on the haterz.
But just because we love the films and they mean something to us and our generation, that doesn't mean another studio, director, producer, scriptwriter, and set of actors in another time can't come along and do it better. And I say let them try! If they fail, we still have the originals.
In, say, 30 years, there will be amazing potential for a series of Harry Potter movies (whether they split it by book again, try to condense the story into a trilogy, or hell, make it a miniseries) to be unique, visually stunning and magical in a completely different way from what we've seen.
First of all, the books will be classics. The movies won't be trying to hide Snape's true loyalties, nor will the actors have to pretend that they don't know who will end up with whom. We'll know that Harry lives, that love was the weapon used to win the war and that ultimately Cho Chang is completely irrelevant to the story. We'll know that Oliver Wood returns in the final film, and that Colin Creevey dies. We'll know that Luna Lovegood becomes hugely important in the later half of the saga, and that Ginny Weasley turns out to be a hot BAMF who steals our hero's heart.
This means that from the get-go, the scriptwriter will know which characters to emphasise, what storylines to draw forward, what series-long arcs need to be established. The director will know what lingering looks need to be zoomed in on, what types of actors she envisions in the roles, exactly how they need to react in certain situations. The set designers will know where everything goes, why it goes there and when it's gonna get blown up.
The series will be so deeply ingrained in our collective memory that not only will movie makers have to satisfy our expectations, they'll also have to imagine a gripping, fresh way of doing it. They can't sell the films on suspense or effects (considering how far those probably will have gone by then), they must take a page out of Peter Jackson's book and sell it on the integrity of the story. A story which is not "a children's book that your kids will enjoy," but a story which everyone has grown up with. There'll be no scoffing from adults who don't understand (well, there'll always be scoffing, but that's their problem), because not having been exposed to Harry Potter will be as rare as not having been exposed to Winnie the Pooh or Robin Hood (to mix up the age ranges) while growing up. Seniors will swarm to the cinemas (that'll be us, you guys! Hold on to your dentures, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!), ready to relive Harry's incredible journey.
Also, and this is a personal gripe of mine, a second round of Harry Potter films may just have a different take on visualising the concept of magic. I was never into the mechanic, square magic of the movies; the rigid moving staircases, the doors that opened with bolts and screws or the very Muggle (but look mum, no hands!) feel of it all. I'm not asking for puffs of purple smoke or anything, but when I read that one Hogwarts staircase led somewhere different on a Tuesday, I imagined that the characters would be surprised when they walked up 30 steps and opened a door only to find themselves in the dungeons, and when I read about the appearance of 12 Grimmauld Place I certainly didn't imagine that it'd move as if on hinges, rumbling and shaking fish tanks. I'm not saying it was a bad interpretation, but there was a very clear choice on the part of the producers and directors to make it "realistic" magic. I'd like to see Harry discover a different version of the magical world; someone else's imagination brought to life. Basically I'd like it to be more magical.
The second round of Potter would need to do more than just retell the story we've already been, and if they go all experimental and artistic to be "different" or whatever I'm gonna be one pissed off pensioner. But starting over from scratch with a complete vision, fresh eyes and with the technology to physically be able to fly around on broomsticks (!), I believe the 2.0 adaptation could be absolutely fantastic, and stand alone as a true, timeless masterpiece.
I love the books so much, I can't imagine I'll ever get tired of seeing the stories re-told.