Every Harry Potter Movie Is On Top Of The Streaming Charts
All of the Harry Potter films are currently in HBO Max's top 10 streaming.
In recent years, fans have debated if Harry Potter is still relevant thanks to everything from J.K. Rowling’s seemingly endless controversial statements over trans folk to the fact that the recent Fantastic Beasts movies flopped harder than a Quidditch player falling off their broomstick. But now the franchise is experiencing something of a renaissance due to excitement over the Hogwarts Legacy video game and the recently announced reboot of the franchise, causing fans to use HBO Max to stream all the movies in the Wizarding World. And now, FlixPatrol reports that every Harry Potter movie is in the top 10 of the major streaming platform.
In retrospect, one of the most fascinating things about the Harry Potter movies is how the director for the first film (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) was chosen. For example, J.K. Rowling really wanted Terry Gilliam, while the studio tried to court Steven Spielberg, who only turned down the opportunity because he wanted to spend more time with his family. Ultimately, Warner Bros. decided to hire Home Alone director Christopher Columbus because of his experience working with young actors, and he shaped the cinematic world of Harry Potter into something that old fans of the books and newer fans both loved.
The casting of the core trio was also pitch-perfect. Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were completely unknown actors at the time, and they were chosen after auditioning against literally thousands of other children. As for Daniel Radcliffe, who would play Harry Potter himself, he was chosen for the title role based largely on the strength of his performance in the BBC’s 1999 adaptation of David Copperfield.
Another amazing thing about those original Harry Potter movies is that all of them were hits with critics and audiences alike. On RottenTomatoes, the lowest-rated film, Deathly Hallows: Part I, still had a 77 percent, which is very damned impressive. And the sequel to that film, which also brought the original story to an end, has a 96 percent, making it the highest-rated film and clear evidence that the story went out on a high note.
Unfortunately, Warner Bros. spent years chasing that particularly high, and the studio tried to continue the momentum of those Harry Potter films by creating a spin-off franchise. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was a box office hit and looked like the new film series might last even longer than the original film series did. But that franchise kept bringing the studio diminished returns, with the third (and likely final) film Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore making about half of what the first film made, which was a clear indicator that audiences didn’t love these new characters and settings as much and wanted the original magic back.
This understandably put Warner Bros. in a tough spot. The original movies had won a combined 12 Academy Awards and had fans from all over the world, so how could they recreate this magic? And, likely inspired by the success of Universal Studios’ Wizarding World of Harry Potter, they decided to recreate the magic the only way Hollywood knows how: by rebooting it.
It’s something of an open secret that HBO is planning to reboot Harry Potter as a television series on HBO Max, with each season adapting one of the books. J.K. Rowling is officially attached to the project, and her ongoing anti-trans hysteria has many fans and even Daniel Radcliffe standing up to her. Her involvement in this new show has already turned those fans off, while other fans question whether we really need to experience the story of the books for the third time, especially without the involvement of the original actors everyone loves.
Ironically enough, it is likely many of these fans worried about the reboot that are streaming the films they first fell in love with, and this will likely make Warner Bros. think that a reboot will be a major hit. Only time will tell if enough fans tune in for that reboot series to make it to the final book or if this becomes just one more major project the troubled studio quietly cancels. If the reboot and James Gunn’s new DCU end up flopping at the same time, we could be looking at the end of Warner Bros. as we know it, and all without a Time-Turner in sight.
