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Credit: Warner Bros.Lately, Harry Potter has become famous for all the wrong reasons. Though we’d all like to think it started with the “Hogwarts Legacy” (2023) backlash last year — which, of course, backfired and resulted in bolstering the game’s success — the controversy that now casts a Dementor-like shadow over the franchise can be traced back to the first tweet from JK Rowling that caused a massive stir within the trans community, the fanbase, and beyond.
The world-famous Harry Potter author has repeatedly doubled down on her opposing views on gender identity over the years, and though many fans have sided with her, some have cut ties with the Wizarding World franchise altogether as a result. Still, there’s plenty of interest, so it’s only a matter of time before Warner Bros. conjures up another movie in theaters.
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The Fantastic Beasts trilogy left a lot to be desired. While the first film in the series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), grossed over $814M worldwide and was met with a positive reception from fans and critics, the two sequels, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022), amounted to nothing more than a pair of Squibs that buried the spinoff series forever.
While there’s a brand-new Harry Potter reboot that has nothing to do with either film series in development, many fans (AKA Potterheads) are still hoping for a big-screen adaptation of the award-winning West End play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which has been described as “the eighth Harry Potter story” by writer JK Rowling. Now, a brand-new fan-made trailer imagines what a Cursed Child movie might look like. Check it out below:
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While it’s hardly the first fan-made Harry Potter and the Cursed Child trailer floating about on the Internet, it mostly draws upon footage from the latest film in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part II (2011), rather than relying heavily on AI (artificial intelligence). This is surprising considering it comes from KH Studios, the YouTube channel that’s been churning out fan-made trailers with the aid of Deepfake tech since AI has become a household topic for those convinced that Skynet is about to take over the world.
The trailer also utilizes footage from The Woman in Black (2012), which stars Daniel Radcliffe. The unsettling gothic horror was the actor’s first post-Wizarding World film — although watching him explore a dark haunted mansion by night without using “Lumos” to light its dark halls or “Alohomora” to unlock doors was incredibly frustrating at the time.
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Of course, Daniel Radcliffe has since shaken off those Azkaban shackles, having starred in several movies that don’t involve wandering down dark halls and battling otherworldly forces. But the star has also distanced himself from Harry Potter in many other ways.
It remains to be seen whether the likes of Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), and Rupert Grint (Ronald Weasley) will ever reprise their roles in the franchise. While a few actors have expressed an interest in returning to play new characters in the upcoming Harry Potter television series, it’s unlikely they’ll get the chance to do so, as it will be a reboot and, as such, will feature an entirely new cast, as impossible as it is to imagine anyone else having that iconic lightning bolt scar upon their forehead.
We’ll also have to wait and see if Warner Bros. ever decides to conjure up a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child movie. At this rate, with several actors from the eight films having distanced themselves from JK Rowling (Daniel Radcliffe recently widened the gap between himself and the Wizarding World creator), Warner Bros. may as well give us the Cursed Child story as part of the new reboot universe — after all, they’ve already alluded to several spinoffs to the Harry Potter television series even though it hasn’t even started filming yet.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is now playing in the West End in London. A North American tour begins next year. There’s no release date for the television series.
Would you like to see Cursed Child brought to life on the big screen? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!