A Surprising Director Wanted to Make a ‘Creepy’ ‘Harry Potter’ Film

I don’t think the new Harry Potter television show, which is planned to appear on MAX, will achieve the same level of popularity as the movies. It’s possible. People love that franchise. I’ve already heard coworkers at my day job twisting themselves into knots to justify getting excited about the show, despite all of the repugnant garbage JK Rowling brings along with it (which MAX has stood by). It will have its fans, but I doubt it will reach the same level of popularity as its predecessor.

Part of that has to do with the current media landscape. Not to state the obvious, but movies and TV are consumed differently now. People can watch whatever they like, and a lot of what they watch is people on YouTube watching or playing other things. It’s hard to break through all of that noise, though the brand name of Harry Potter is strong and still could. If the show can find a way to take creative risks, as the originals avoided, it could have more of a chance to stand out.

The first two Harry Potter films are relatively standard. I wouldn’t call them bland, but they come close. Warner Brothers had entrusted the steady hand of Chris Columbus and produced some fairly safe films. Then, the studio brought in Alfonso Cuarón, who took more risks and presented a darker, more character-driven film. That approach more or less went away after that. The series would get darker, but it felt less risky. Surprisingly, Warner Brothers went with Cuarón’s approach, as they had already turned down a big-name director who wanted to get weird with it.

David Fincher recently chatted with Variety and revealed he had met with WB about directing the franchise. “I was asked to come in and talk to them about how I would do Harry Potter,” the director explained. “I remember saying, ‘I just don’t want to do the clean Hollywood version of it. I want to do something that looks a lot more like Withnail and I, and I want it to be kind of creepy.’” Warner Brothers was not on board with Fincher’s take. “They were like, ‘We want Thom Browne schooldays by way of Oliver.”

Things worked out well for Warner Brothers in the end. Harry Potter is one of its most successful film franchises, which is why they’re trying to bleed that thing dry. Maybe they’ll take a creepier approach this time? Maybe they’ll talk to Fincher?! Or, more likely, they’ll do a drawn-out, decade-long adaptation that could just as easily get canceled as soon as Zaslav figures out how to sell WBD’s assets to Jiffy Lube. All are very viable possibilities.