With Fantastic Beasts 3 on the way next year, many people have long-wondered whether any other Harry Potter characters might be getting prequels, sequels or spin-offs. One of the most popular proposals in the fandom has long been a Marauders movie or series. Well, there is a still a chance that something like that could happen, according to Warner Bros.
It has now been twenty years since the release of the first Harry Potter movie and to celebrate that fact, HBO Max will have an Anniversary Special on New Year’s Day, with the central trio and many of the supporting cast.
The Fantastic Beasts franchise started in 2016 and has been through several changes and delays (with there being a four year gap between 2 and 3), the most significant of which is that the character of Grindelwald has been played by three different actors – Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp and in the upcoming film; Mads Mikkelsen.
While many people question who the audience for these films are (Fantastic Beasts 2 has a 36% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), the first made over $800 million and the sequel made $650 million, so the Harry Potter fandom clearly isn’t going anywhere.
Also in 2016, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was first performed in London’s West End and has gone onto Broadway and other tours. This play expanded the potential of the Wizarding World, as it involved Harry, Ron and Hermione as adults, followed their children at Hogwarts and also, controversially, did some retconning of events from the books.
Warnes Bros CEO Ann Sarnoff has said at a recent conference; “We would love to develop more original Harry Potter series, and we regularly talk to JK Rowling and her team. It’s got to be right, though. Whatever we do has to be true to the canon, and true to the ethos of the Wizarding World and who Harry is.”
Many Harry Potter fans would love this to be a Marauders prequel – that focuses on Sirius (played by Gary Oldman in the films), Lupin (David Thewlis), Wormtail (Timothy Spall), as well as Harry’s parents and Snape (Alan Rickman). Their relationships with one another as teenagers while at Hogwarts would go on to have lasting ramifications for Harry. Fan-casting the young Marauders is hugely popular on sites such as Tumblr, with Ben Barnes once being a popular choice for Snape.
How long the appetite for all things Harry Potter related will be sustained, when the original fanbase are now adults who are aware of the controversies surrounding JK Rowling, remains to be seen. In 2020, GLAAD made a statement, saying; “JK Rowling continues to align herself with an ideology which willfully distorts facts about gender identity and people who are trans. In 2020, there is no excuse for targeting trans people.”
It will be interesting to see how Jude Law’s Dumbledore, who is gay and was/is in love with Grindelwald, develops in the next Fantastic Beasts film – here are some facts that you might not know about the character.