Page 1 of JK Rowling to write Harry Potter spin-off

According to BBC News, JK Rowling is to make her screenwriting debut in a new Harry Potter-themed film series, Warner Bros has announced. The first film of the series will be titled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.Is she right to resurrect the Harry Potter universe?  Or is she milking a cash cow?

For what my opinion is worth, I think she's right to revisit her franchise.  It's what I'd do.  If she didn't write Fantastic Beasts, Warner Bros would hire some hack writer to do the job instead.  She's created a literary universe that she can write any story or kind of story in.  She's proven to herself with Casual Vacancy and the other thing that she isn't a one-trick pony - she can write outside the universe that she's created.

I honestly don't understand why people are so hostile to writers and filmmakers revisiting characters and situations.  Did anyone moan about Dickens writing "another of his bleeding heart liberal" stories?  Arthur Conan Doyle cranking "more of that Sherlock Holmes crap" out?



J Mark Oates

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It`s Grand To Be Daft

sprockethole.myreviewer.com

If she wan'ts to have a crack a it and thinks there's something more to add or somewhere else she'd like to take the world she's created good luck to her.
I doubt she's doing it for the money and arguably she's sticking her reputation on the line again.
Writers write. That's what they do.

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Did anyone moan about Dickens writing "another of his bleeding heart liberal" stories?  Arthur Conan Doyle cranking "more of that Sherlock Holmes crap" out?No but there may be a few of us who think Mr Lucas has flogged a certain horse to death and beyond.


Snaps

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My new Flash Fiction blog. All my own work
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I used to be with it, but then they changed what `it` was.
Now, what I`m with isn`t it, and what`s `it` seems weird and scary

This item was edited on Friday, 13th September 2013, 22:46

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Mark Oates says...
"If she didn't write Fantastic Beasts, Warner Bros would hire some hack writer to do the job instead."Impossible. For the first thing, a condition of Warner bros taking on the HP universe is that Jo has final say on everything. If that wasn't agreed at the start, the HP universe would be set in America, directed by Speilberg and we've have had Haley Joel Osment plaguing our screen for the last decade.

Also, she's already written it. It was part of a two-book set (with Quidditch through the ages) that were released to raise money for Comic Relief about a decade ago.

The 'problem' people have with Rowling is naught but jealousy. She came from nothing to be the creator of the most popular and lucrative character franchises in recent times. You're absolutely spot on that she's since proven she's not a one-trick pony with her two other books. The Casual Vacancy (which I've still yet to read) didn;t fly off the shelves because of uncertainty. plus a lot of people weren't actually interested in something from her that wasn't harry-related. However, the anonymity she garnered by writing the second book under a nom de plume was a stroke of genius, and allowed her work to be recognised on its own merits, which it was in spectacular fashion - until the publisher let the cat out of the bag (possibly to make more money for themselves?)

I'm looking forward to it, it'll have the bonus of not having a source novel for the nerds to pick apart and compare

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Writer`s Release

She is quite right to carry on with the Harry Potter Universe.

I expect at a future date she will come out with books on the adventures of Harry's son and and company. Plus films of course, which we all would want to see.

The news item I picked the story up from stated that Warner Bros had gone to Jo with the idea of Fantastic Beasts with the intention of another writer doing it.  She'd (naturally) been lukewarm to the idea but it had got her thinking and she'd wound up pitching her own version to WB.

I'm surprised that there is some negative reaction to the news.  I think a lot of the negative stuff is simple jealousy or that modern fashion of piddling on the barbeque.

As to that certain George of a Lucas persuasion, I'd say he's over-merchandised Star Wars but he hasn't exactly flogged the franchise to death - six movies in thirty-odd years.  I think people would respect him more if he'd made more movies than keep faffing about with the six.

J Mark Oates

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It`s Grand To Be Daft

sprockethole.myreviewer.com

I think Lucal loves merchandising because it essentially paid for Empire, which in turn paid for Jedi, all down to some shrewd financial dealing to get the first film off the ground.

He's a good businessman, but a s***ty film-maker

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Writer`s Release

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Mark Oates says...
"I'd say he's over-merchandised Star Wars but he hasn't exactly flogged the franchise to death"Really? The Phantom Menace wasn't flogging an already dead horse?

"Attack those Imperial Star Cruisers now" and they just about managed the cut before Ewan McGregor pi**ed himself laughing.

I'm not sure Lucas can even spell Die-a-log much less write it.




Snaps

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My new Flash Fiction blog. All my own work
500ish

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I used to be with it, but then they changed what `it` was.
Now, what I`m with isn`t it, and what`s `it` seems weird and scary

I'd be interested to see it, largely because I can't read the book first, so it won't annoy me as the original Harry Potter films did, which I enjoyed as films in their own right, but not as films of the book (if that makes sense).  I think she's probably right to see if she can do more with the wonderful world of Harry Potter and enough of us would be interested to keep it going :)

Mum got me the casual vacancy the other week because I kept threatening to get it and not bothering and I have to say it was brilliantly written, and almost impossible to put down between chapters.

At the risk of this thread getting seriously off topic, GL could so easily have banged out a cash-in sequel every other year between 1980 and the present.  We'd be on Star Wars XIV: The Wrath Of Yoda by now.

I'd like to see Fantastic Beasts as a series of books as well as movies.  And hopefully as FB originated as a Comic Relief fundraiser, the charity might benefit from the deal as well.

J Mark Oates

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It`s Grand To Be Daft

sprockethole.myreviewer.com

The Grandson of Jar Jar Binks? Can't wait

I can't imagine that there wouldn't be a book to follow the movie and neither will fail to make a profit, wherever that profit ends up. There's more than enough Potter faithful even if it was complete dross, which I doubt it will be.

Snaps

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My new Flash Fiction blog. All my own work
500ish

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I used to be with it, but then they changed what `it` was.
Now, what I`m with isn`t it, and what`s `it` seems weird and scary