Key Takeaways
- The potential for a Harry Potter TV series is high, but there’s uncertainty over how many seasons will be created.
- Splitting novels into multiple seasons may boost revenue, but it could also damage the show’s structure and content quality.
- Maintaining one season per novel would ensure consistent quality and pacing, creating a stronger foundation for the show’s success.
Harry Potter turning into a television series is something that has everyone talking due to the potential that the Wizarding World has when it comes to being adapted to that format. It will undoubtedly be different from the movies, but it’s currently unclear how many seasons there will be.
The logical decision would be to give each novel one season, but a recent twist has hinted at the possibility of creating more than seven seasons for the show, which might not necessarily be the correct decision for the Harry Potter television show.
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Why Might HBO Create More Seasons
HBO’s adaptation of Harry Potter has promised to be accurate to the books, down to getting the canonical ages of the characters right. For the series to provide the necessary detail, each novel must be provided at least one season to tell the story correctly, as that will give the showrunners enough time to construct a narrative that touches on all of the necessary points in each of them.
However, recent comments from the CEO and President of Global Streaming for Warner Bros. Discovery admitted that they’re embarking on a “10-year journey on the Harry Potter series,” which led to some confusion among fans about what that could entail. While this could be HBO’s way of stretching out the project to build excitement and give itself enough time to film and edit each episode, it has led to some speculation that there will be more than seven seasons.
HBO could ultimately look to make as much money from the franchise as possible by giving some of the novels multiple seasons to enhance the story and provide even more episodes of the show, which would no doubt lead to an increase in viewership if the quality is high. This is something that even the movies did with the final novel, opting to split the story into two different films to give even more detail and ultimately to earn more money at the box office, which is exactly what they did.
Why It Would Be Wiser For HBO To Only Use One Season Per Novel
Giving some of the Harry Potter novels more than one season could make sense from a business perspective, as it will help build more attention to the product, which is exactly what HBO is looking to achieve. However, giving preferential treatment to specific novels might lead to people taking less of an interest in the other seasons that aren’t being split into multiple seasons, as it would make them seem like they were less important. Each novel is crucial in its own right to telling the overall Harry Potter story, regardless of how the intensity rises as things progress throughout the books.
Having some of the novels split into different seasons would also risk damaging the show’s structure. Audiences will have gotten into a groove of expecting a specific number of episodes, which would also be the case for the writers. They’d likely have understood exactly how to time episodes and get the best out of them in terms of when to ramp things up with more serious scenes or how to balance things with comedy and lighter moments. Adding lots of extra episodes for the later novels could cause problems in that aspect as it could lead to those particular seasons feeling like they’re being dragged out, which isn’t a good thing.
HBO needs to ensure that the Harry Potter series is structured perfectly so each season provides the same level of quality, as that’s ultimately what made the movies so successful. Each film produced brilliant entertainment, and if HBO gave the novels the same attention, focus, and length of time, then it would likely be a stronger starting point for the actors involved to jump off and make their own. The later seasons will likely get more attention due to the seriousness of them as the drama will naturally rise, but keeping things tight for the writers to work with heading into it means that none of the weaker storylines are carried into each season which will keep the standards high.
Ultimately, the most important aspect of HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series will be the quality of the episodes. People are tuning in to be entertained and to see the story spun in a slightly different way than ever before, and considering how iconic the story itself is; the opportunity is high for this to become HBO’s greatest-ever show. However, sticking to just a single season per novel would provide some necessary structure for those running the show, both in terms of pacing and to ensure nothing ends up overstaying its welcome, which could, in turn, damage the standard of the overall product.
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