It seemed that, in 2011, we were to say farewell to Harry Potter and Hogwarts forever or, at least, for a very long time. But J.K. Rowling nor Warner Bros. wanted to let their successful wizards rest a lot. Next year we will revisit that universe in 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them', starring Eddie Redmayne, a freshman, and directed by a senior in this saga like David Yates.
But there was one man who didn't have any trouble to admit he would be delighted to come back to the saga, and that man was Chris Columbus. The director of the two first movies of the franchise, who has directed 'Pixels' recently - in cinemas August 12 -, has talked to us in an interview in which we were able to ask him about this new twist the franchise he began would take next year. He admitted that the thing that made him say yes in the first place was the group of characters, but he also threw a very interesting ball in J.K. Rowling's roof:
"I'd like to go back to that universe but what attracted me to 'Harry Potter' were the characters: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hagrid... I'm interested in going back to that. The seventh book ended, Harry was 17 or 18, and then we jumped all the way to he was 35 so we don't know what happened in those years. There's a wealth of material of what could have happened. It's up to Jo to write those books if she wants to, but if she did and they were to make a movie, I'd be back in a second".
Will all the starring cast be back?
When the franchise was starting, Chris Columbus was tempted to direct all the chapters of the young wizard's saga, but he was burnt out after the second one and passed the torch to Alfonso Cuarón, who directed 'The Prisoner of Azkaban'. It seems like he has passed that feeling, but a project like this would be extremely difficult to put together because they would have to convince Daniel Radcliffe and the other stars to come back too, and a lot of them have already moved on. While we wait for Rowling to answer Columbus, we'll have 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' in cinemas November 18 2016, with a script written by J.K. Rowling, and we'll have 'Pixels' in cinemas this year, starring Adam Sandler, opening August 12.