It has been 11 years since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II was released in theaters in 2011. David Zaslav, the newly appointed CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, will reportedly focus more on franchises like Harry Potter and Superman.
His statements, however, seemed to diss the currently running Fantastic Beasts franchise since he doesn’t consider them equivalent to the Harry Potter franchise.
David Zaslav Disses The Fantastic Beasts Franchise
Discussing Film took to Twitter to share a statement made by the President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav. In these statements, the Chief used incorrect math to state his points but in the process, dissed the Fantastic Beasts Franchise.
“We’re going to have a real focus on franchises. We haven’t had a Superman movie in 13 years and we haven’t had a Harry Potter movie in 15 years.”
Although the math is completely wrong since Man of Steel was 9 years ago and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II was 11 years ago, the point was taken into consideration. The currently running Fantastic Beasts franchise hasn’t been proving too successful recently due to redundancy, changing and replacing actors, and the controversies that J.K. Rowling ends up in.
Many people supported David Zaslav for completely ignoring the Fantastic Beasts franchise while some people felt pretty annoyed at the remarks. More people claimed that they do not want another Harry Potter movie and that Warner Bros. Discovery should focus on original content, instead.
The recent revival of the Harry Potter franchise comes after the fact that Robbie Coltrane, most famously known for playing Hagrid in the Harry Potter franchise recently passed away at the age of 72. This could be a move for David Zaslav to pay his respects to the late actor or simply a nostalgic feeling for the people to watch. Either way, it seems that people will be hearing more about Harry Potter and Superman soon.
J.K. Rowling Is The Holdup For David Zaslav
In the statements mentioned above, David Zaslav also mentioned the (now) infamous author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling. The author first came into controversy when she tweeted out anti-trans tweets for which she received a heavy backlash. Many actors from the Harry Potter franchise spoke against the creator which was the reason for less magical content in these recent years.
David Zaslav mentioned the “potential” to do something with the Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling “going forward” during the company’s Q3 earnings. Along with Harry Potter, Chief David Zaslav also mentioned Sex and the City, The Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, and, Game of Thrones. Stating that the franchises have earned a majority of profit for Warner Bros. Discovery, the President said that they will continue to work on these.
According to sources from Variety, there are currently no talks with J.K. Rowling regarding any Harry Potter film in development. The Wizarding World (which includes the Fantastic Beasts franchise) is also put on hold since their latest movie Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore didn’t perform as well as expected. Partly, the reason is Mads Mikkelsen replacing Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindlewald for Warner Bros. Discovery had terminated their contract with Depp due to the infamous Amber Heard defamation trial.
There has been no official news regarding a potential release further in the Fantastic Beasts franchise. The Fantastic Beasts franchise is available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: Twitter
