Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are two of the biggest media franchises out there. We have movies based on both book series, but the studio that controls these IPs, Warner Bros. Discovery, is just getting started. future will see even more stories get churned out.
It feels like every day that there’s another piece of news about the future of these mammoth properties. Most recently, WBD announced their intent to bring us additional Lord of the Rings movies. And that’s in addition to Amazon Prime going ahead with another season of The Rings of Power, a prequel series set in the Second Age of Middle-earth. Everyone wants a slice!
As for when we might see these mysterious Middle-earth projects hit our screens, CEO Gunnar Wiedenfels played it coy. “We’re starting to make progress,” he said, per Variety. “It’s exciting to see how people are coming in and out and how the creative community is embracing this opportunity to work with us. That’s going to bear fruit, over time.”
It is unclear what kinds of movies we will get. Another adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal trilogy? Interestingly, there are already rumors that the studio wants to get Peter Jackson — the director of the original LOTR trilogy — back to helm the reboot.
Warner Bros. Discovery has big plans for Harry Potter
Switching over to Harry Potter, the Wizarding World recently had a hit with the release of the video game Hogwarts Legacy. Wiedenfels believes Warner Bros. Discovery can ride that wave of the rekindled popularity. “Take ‘Harry Potter’ as an example, the Wizarding World, the fact that we are enjoying this massive success with the ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ launch, 12 years after the last film came out, shows that there is so much opportunity and we’re only just starting to expand that,” he said.
"We’ve got the new ‘Harry Potter’ tour coming up in Tokyo in the middle of the year. Long story short, I think this one-company approach, great leadership in the individual business units, but coordinated franchise management is probably one of the biggest opportunities the company has."
Do I really want more reboots and endless expansions of these iconic properties? Not really. Will I watch all of them and possibly enjoy them? Yes, most likely. More is coming whether we like it or not.
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