HARRY POTTER Film Director Chris Columbus Talks About the Biggest Challenge of Remaking the Story in the New Series

The Harry Potter book series is being adapted once again, but this time instead of eight movies, each of the seven novels will be a separate season of TV.

The longform style of television is kind of perfect for these books, as the main complaint from fans was that from around book 3 on, there was just too much left out of the films.

The books were so rich with lore that the movies couldn’t capture, and the show will hopefully be able to include so much more of that.

But there is one issue that the TV adaptation faces that the films did not, and that is fan expectation. Director Chris Columbus, who helmed the first two films in the franchise, recently weighed in on the monumental task awaiting the new creators.

Columbus shared his thoughts with Empire Magazine (via Nerd Informants) on the challenges the series faces, explaining how its relationship to the films could make or break its success. He first focused on the upside to the TV format, saying:

“Look, I wish them luck. With the TV series, you have the opportunity to basically film the entire book. So that’s exciting. They can get into things that we could never get into - [like] the character of Peeves, who we tried to put in the first film.”

He went on to talk about what he perceives to be their biggest hurdle:

“They’ve got a bit of a challenge, I think. There’s a certain stylistic quality to those films you either have to depart [from] or you have to embrace.

“Do they completely rethink the look of Hogwarts? Do they use the John Williams theme? I don’t know how you do that. But I look forward to seeing it.”

There are a lot of decisions to make. The movies are what people imagine when they think of Harry Potter. It will be tricky to cast new characters, and even decide how the sets look.

I hope they are able to pull it off, and tell a story as memorable and iconic as the films were able to.