Jared Harris (Chernobyl, Mad Men) may be a great actor on his own right, but a lot of people don’t seem to know that he’s actually the son of Richard Harris, who millennials best recognize as the actor who played Albus Dumbledore for the first two Harry Potter films.
With the reboot of Potter incoming, Harris was asked if he was interested in taking on the role of Dumbledore, since he’s around the right age for it. Talking to The Independent, Harris declined, saying, “No, thank you.” Commenting on the reboot itself, Harris said, “Why do it? I don’t understand. The films were fantastic – leave them alone.”
For a while, it did seem like WB was going to leave the original Potter films alone, with their establishment of the Wizarding World brand. The initial plan seemed to be for WB to just expand on the world of Potter, with prequels like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them bringing fans to other places in the magic world outside of Hogwarts.
However, it wasn’t expected that the Fantastic Beasts films would lose their steam in the box office. Though Newt Scamander seemed like a good protagonist, he had been sidelined when the movies had decided to put the focus on the clash between Dumbledore and his ex-lover Grindelwald.
When it comes to the reboot of the Potter books, this new adaptation is said to be more faithful to the books, adapting story points that couldn’t be fit into 2-hour films. While it’s great that we could get characters like Winky and scenes like the Quidditch World Cup, some more practical fans are wondering if the show will be able to keep up with the visual effects and production value that the original movies had.
Besides that, what kind of stress would the Harry Potter series be putting the new trio of kids who are playing Harry, Ron, and Hermoine? That’s at least a 10-year commitment for kids so young. It’s kind of a miracle that Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson stayed till the end—Watson even almost quit.
For now, no release date has been set for the Harry Potter reboot.
