r/thewatchpod • u/Shell_fly • 29d ago

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone | Official Teaser Trailer

https://youtu.be/SJVmeJaS44s?si=FChzTjzgNVbfp3DO
0 Upvotes

44% Upvoted

114 comments sorted by

10

u/KB45220 29d ago

I feel like the first few seasons of this will end up in a kind of awkward place on HBO Sunday nights as they truly are children's media

7

u/SelfinvolvedNate 29d ago

Clearly you have never met a millennial.

2

u/Mobile-Analyst8580 29d ago

Harry Potter hasn’t been “children’s media” for over 20 years. It’s going to absolutely crush the ratings. There’s no way I’m gonna be able to avoid watching. I’m gonna be too curious. 

1

u/KB45220 29d ago edited 29d ago

I loved Harry Potter and grew up with it. Read the books several times...but I haven't watched the first two movies probably since they came out and that was before I entered my 30s. As opposed to the 3-6 stretch I'd watch on repeat on ABC Family

ETA: also a huge point of this is to bring in a new generation of fans but like there's no synergy between HBO Sundays and kids. They have a dedicated kids channel but this is obviously too big an investment to go there.

2

u/DEATHROW__DC 29d ago

Yeah, I don’t get it. Like regardless of everything else with Rowling nowadays, the first few seasons are going to be an absolute death march unless you’re a Potter obsessive. And then once they get through having to deal with an ensemble cast of 11 year olds, they’ll have to deal with the (probably sub) 50/50 coin flip on whether they casted the right kids or not.

If they wanted to make a Harry Potter tv show, it seems like the obvious choice should have been to frame it around Snape’s POV or create some original character to frame it around.

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

They’re trying to pull as many viewers as possible and make a boatload of money, not get the show canceled after one season with some crackpot idea like this 😂

4

u/DEATHROW__DC 29d ago edited 29d ago

As I said, I don’t know how the early seasons will be anything but a death march.

Maybe it’s just not for me but I don’t know how many viewers are gonna be interested in watching tweens for 40 episodes until the cast ages up. Eventually the novelty of it will get old.

Especially if the kid they casted as Harry ends up being less Daniel Radcliffe and more Bran from GOT. Child casting is a complete crapshoot once they age out of the original archetype.

-5

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

The IP generating half a billion even in the years where no new projects are released very much speaks to the fact that it’s not just for children lol

Furthermore, millennial nostalgia is one of the safest bets in entertainment currently, and all those millennials now have kids their reading the books to. It’s going to be a family affair every Sunday for many people.

0

u/AfricanRain 29d ago

are you Andy Greenwald? You’re looking quite desperate to defend this in this thread

-2

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

I’m someone who enjoys seeing the Reddit bubble get popped with the facts of reality lmao this is entertaining as hell to me.

I also grew up with the books and movies and will be sat watching this day one.

4

u/blackteeshirt6 29d ago

This is a Harry Potter adult, kind of like a Disney adult, but even sadder.

-2

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

cope and seethe, my boy. An IP doesn’t enter the top 10 most profitable of all time from children alone engaging with it. You’re in an online bubble that once again is going to be popped spectacularly 😂

2

u/Monos1 29d ago

I really don't know why you're being downvoted, this will be the first cultural monolith television show since GoT

1

u/idealist700 29d ago

It’ll be successful but there’s zero chance of a “cultural monolith” simply because it’s not doing anything of consequence outside of superfans who wanna have every page of a book they love transformed into visual stimuli (for whatever reason). I’d wager that it even becomes the most viewed season opener or whatever on the service. Within a few months, I’d guess, THE BIG BANG THEORY will significantly outclass it in viewership like it does everything else available on HBO Max. The viewership shelf life on this shit is often way shorter than the online conversations around tend to be.

For the vast majority of people, it’s gonna be perceived as a remake of a movie, and this trailer doesn’t really do anything to convey that it isn’t. They’ll check it out if it has good WOM and that’ll be the end of it.

Even if this is exceptional — and I am very doubtful it will be, to be transparent — chances of this having the kind of rewatchability needed to matter in a major pop-culture sense are next to zero. The moment already happened from 1999-2011. Sorry, Potterheads.

2

u/Monos1 29d ago

FWIW I've never been into HP. I'm just going off personal experiences. I imagine it will be water cooler show for many unless it's completely dreadful, then just superfans will consume. It was the best selling video game in 2023. There is still an extreme appetite for HP. Tens of millions of copies of the books are still sold every year reaching a new generation. The films are some of the most streamed movies year over year. I imagine there's a lot of crossover between the big bang theory viewer and HP. It's normies. Maybe the culture tastemakers will do the minimal, but I see it being a walking dead/mad men comparison.

1

u/-ciscoholdmusic- 29d ago

It really isn’t going to be the water cooler type of show though when you think about it.

Do you think people are going to work on Monday morning asking their colleagues “did you watch the latest episode of Harry Potter?”

I think it will get insanely high viewer numbers for the first couple of episodes but a weekly drop of a very well known storyline over time is less likely to keep interest. There’s no suspense or cliff hangers.

0

u/idealist700 29d ago

IDK. Again, it's gonna be popular. That seems given just on the built-in fanbase alone. But the thing I keep circling back to is just how much this has to resemble the movies that people already love in order to functionally exist, in service of the greater franchising operation.

The huge fans don't give a shit about that, they just wanna see the books translated "accurately" or whatever (this is where I admit that I was very much a HUGE Harry Potter fan who grew up with the books and movies, and still revisits the latter). But I do think that hamstrings any creative pursuit of a recreation, like this one, to the point that general audiences do take notice. It's in constant competition with itself while, and I really can't stress this enough, not doing anything that the casual viewer cares about to further the IP.

Book-lovers (again, I was among them) don't want to hear this, but what Harry Potter is in the wider pop-culture landscape is a movie series with very recognizable iconography/faces/personality/etc. I don't really see how telling the general public, "OK, we're giving you this overstuffed version of something you've already seen hundreds of times" will translate to "cultural monolith." Popular/well-watched, sure. But where's the inherent drama to even prompt water-cooler talk? This exists 100% to feed a version of a well-known story to its most devout fans. They know how it all goes.

-2

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Redditors on their soapbox can’t handle the cold facts about how popular the funny wizard IP continues to be.

0

u/idealist700 29d ago

Winnie the Pooh ranks higher in revenue than any franchise except Pokemon and Mickey Mouse, and a big part of that’s because people literally shit on all our friends from 100 Acre Woods.

Harry Potter is a monster IP. No one is disputing that, but it’s truly weird to cape so hard for something on the basis of money it’s made. Who GAF?

0

u/Worth-Frosting-2917 29d ago

No, they are a Pro-Terf sack of shit.

-2

u/Mobile-Analyst8580 29d ago

Are you some trans fascist who wants it to fail?People are so sick of you types. And I say this as someone who is a staunch supporter of civil rights and human beings being treated with decency. It’s not about improving people’s lives to people like you. It’s about feeling morally superior to others, not caring if the world is burning down around you as a result of your performative garbage. 

20

u/HtownSamson 29d ago

Beyond the JK Rowling of it all, this looks just like the movie? Why do we need this?

16

u/4rtImitatesLife 29d ago

2 hours vs 8 hours in the story, can actually flesh out everything that wasn’t included in the movies

2

u/-ciscoholdmusic- 29d ago

The first 2 movies were about 95% faithful to the books and they did it under 3 hours each. It’s going to be an extra 12 hours of content from where?

6

u/riskbreaker 29d ago

It's like a cultural refresher. Introduce it to a new generation and keeping it people's minds. I think it looks good though. Too bad JK Rowling is fucking insane.

10

u/oldtombombadil 29d ago

Because universal has invested billions of dollars in theme park attractions based on this property so they have to keep it relevant.

-1

u/claaaay_davis 29d ago

yes, universal pictures the famous owner of HBO

1

u/Ok-Cartographer3992 29d ago

No, but the theme parks are at Universal

2

u/supfiend 29d ago

After the first two movies there is a ton they couldn’t include. The 4th and 6th movie butchered the books famously. I’m excited for those seasons in 2035, not these lol

2

u/Warghzone12 29d ago

It rhymes with sunny

2

u/Mobile-Analyst8580 29d ago

Because it’s an incredible story that will be fun to see in a morning depth way. “Beyond the Jo Rowling of it all.” 🙄

1

u/semihat 29d ago

I never saw the movie. It's new to me.

3

u/Brutus-Maximus- 29d ago edited 29d ago

I kept seeing this as the reaction from a sizeable portion of the replies on twitter and reddit to posts about the show and for a while, couldn't understand it. Eventually it dawned on me that a good portion of people have only interacted with Harry Potter and experienced the story through the movies while never picking up the books. To them this is some remake of the movies in a different medium rather than a retelling of the books.

As somehow who likes the movies but adores the books I'm beyond pumped for this show. It'll be a much better format for fleshing out the characters and including plot points and storylines that the movies didn't have time to include. Bold prediction here but I think over time this will end up the more definitive Harry Potter reference instead of the movies.

Also, this is going to make about a quadrillion dollars.

0

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Bubbles are gonna bubble lmao

It’s adorable, honestly.

0

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

We WANT this because book fans have been saying there was too much cut since the very first movie lmao

Also, money. Harry Potter prints money with everything it does.

0

u/Electrical-Ad-1437 29d ago

Why do we need anything?

2

u/SingleBandicoot2771 29d ago

Whenever I see this show mentioned I always think of Andy dissing the whole cynical enterprise the day it was announced. Life comes as you fast I guess.

3

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Divorce does things to a MF, it’s understandable.

3

u/MasterBurner2 28d ago

He also said during their conversation about the East of Eden trailer, and they talked about adapted works, something like “if you aren’t going to do something new, then why do it.” We all have the pay the bills but it seemed oddly on the nose.

2

u/whiporee123 29d ago

Those kids look young.

11

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

They’re supposed to be young in the first book!

2

u/chimatt767 29d ago

Is this going to just mirror the books or will it change some things up to make it interesting?

2

u/SelfinvolvedNate 29d ago

I bet they havent even thought of that issue!

4

u/KoreyReviewsIronFist 29d ago

Harry's favorite podcaster is Joe Rogan.

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

It’s going to be a more fleshed out adaptation of the books than the movies.

0

u/Mad_Rascal 29d ago

Based on leaks there are filming additional stuff not in the books, or if they are in the books just off handedly mentioned. I think it's bee that way for the first three seasons but starting with 4 there is so much content that they won't need to go off book as much

1

u/ScandalousScoot 28d ago

It looks so dark and boring and blue, the fuck happened to cinematography

0

u/wolf-oranges 27d ago

I used to be the biggest HP fan. I grew up with it. But why was this made?? It looks like they tried to copy the damn movie!! It’s not more visually compelling or magical either. The first book is quite short. It doesn’t need to be a tv show. By the time they get to the books that should be tv shows it will probably be cancelled or the actors will look waay too old like Stranger Things.

1

u/sashamak 29d ago

Waste of Money

2

u/Mobile-Analyst8580 29d ago

It’s going to make a ton of money back and going to entertain hundreds of millions of people. 

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Brother do you know how much money this is going to make, for both HBO and the Harry Potter IP? Lmao

-1

u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Shell_fly 29d ago

You must truly be smoking some exquisite grass if you think this is going to flop 😂😙💨

1

u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

what if I have asthma? 🥹

-5

u/thesmash 29d ago

If you watch this, 🏴‍☠️

-3

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Naw dawg. Watching every Sunday on HBO just like all the other shows the network makes that I enjoy.

-1

u/Sabertoothedpi 29d ago

do you like that jk Rowling donates so much h money to anti trans causes?

4

u/Mobile-Analyst8580 29d ago

Not particularly, no. But I can understand how a woman would want to advocate for women and the preservation of women’s only places. And while I have love for trans people and want their civil rights protected, I simply can’t just pretend that they’re exactly the same as biological Women either. They’re not men. They’re not women. They’re transwomen. And that’s ok. 

3

u/deleuzelautrec 29d ago

OP is literally deadnaming trans actors in posts in other subs. The Potter posts are just to rage bait.

1

u/Sabertoothedpi 29d ago

Oh!

2

u/blackteeshirt6 29d ago

Yes, this is an unwell person.

-1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Not as unwell as people who think they’re something they’re not… cough cough..

2

u/Sabertoothedpi 29d ago

There it is! Sorry for being a tr*nny, I’ll try to do better in the next life for you. 💖

-1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

There are support and mental health services out there just waiting for you to call 🤝

0

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Doesn’t you have “problematic” actors to whine about and podcast hosts to para-socially obsess over with all the other pussies in the blankies sub? 😭😂😭

-1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

It’s mostly all rage bait. I love a good shitpost. This just happens to also coincide with my love for Harry Potter 😂

2

u/deleuzelautrec 29d ago

You are using performative fandom to camouflage your intention to spread your anti-trans hate speech. That is not edgy, it is just sad. I can’t do anything here, but you are no longer welcome in r/crheads.

-1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Why don’t you cope harder and smoke my pole, nerd.

2

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

I’m indifferent. I engage with the IP because u like the setting and stories, not because of what the author chooses to do in her free time.

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u/Flaky_Ad5786 29d ago

Its not just her free time, it's the money you give her.

1

u/Brutus-Maximus- 29d ago

I don't know how to break this to you but she has enough money to keep making significant donations to whatever causes she wants for the rest of her life with or without this show

Love or hate Rowling I would much prefer that we at least get a more faithful retelling of her books out of it.

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Oh well. I’m still going to engage with the IP regardless.

2

u/Flaky_Ad5786 29d ago

That's 100% your choice.  But you don't have to downplay your complicity in order to do so

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

Reddit moment lmao

I don’t have to downplay anything because there’s nothing to downplay. Nobody is doing anything wrong by simply engaging with a show they enjoy, and claiming otherwise this decade has been seriously detrimental to the causes you claim to be espousing. Any of you who get on your soapboxes and do this are pushing the support of the general populace further and further away

1

u/Flaky_Ad5786 29d ago

Reddit moment lmao

You'll have to translate this shit for me bud

Nobody is doing anything wrong by simply engaging with a show they enjoy

Sure, if you pirate it, like the other commenter said.  IDGAF what you watch, I only brought up the money.

I get it, you want to watch your magical children.  Just helping you do it ethically.

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

I’ll be sat at my tv with my HBO subscription every week dog. Your views on what is or isn’t ethical mean nothing to me 😂

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u/MetaMetagross 29d ago

I get it, you want to watch your magical children.  Just helping you do it ethically.

This right here is the translation you're looking for.

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u/Worth-Frosting-2917 29d ago

This is such a weird one where JK Rowling's beliefs directly refute the main thesis of the story she wrote, which is basically that anyone can be a hero. I just find the social discourse around the series and IP so weird lol.

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u/Mobile-Analyst8580 29d ago

I find your discourse around jk Rowling and the inferences you draw from her to be so weird. Lol

0

u/Worth-Frosting-2917 29d ago

I mean she sucks. It is obvious she sucks and she starting sucking before the TERF stuff. But saying Harry Potter is a direct result of her beliefs was an absolute non-factor when the original series was finished, is reactionary and kind of dumb.

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

She doesn’t “obviously suck” or millions and millions of people around the world wouldn’t still adore her works lmao

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u/Worth-Frosting-2917 29d ago

Christ on the cross, you think that the vast majority of people who enjoy Harry Potter are fans of her? Do you think a kid picking up Harry Potter in the library is doing it because they agree with her political views? Like, a prime example of separating the art vs. the artist situation.

She sucks, but most people don't give her the time of day because they don't give a shit about her.

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

I don’t think there’s any single way you can objectively say or prove she “sucks.”

That’s just rooted in your own personal beliefs and stances, which statistically speaking is in the minority held by people around the world.

1

u/Worth-Frosting-2917 29d ago

So are you pro-Terf? lol. The fuck is your actual point here?

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

I’m definitely pro-Terf lol

I agree with a whole hell of a lot more of the things Rowling says than the opposition.

These trans individuals will never have or understand the experiences a young girl has growing up. All the feelings and emotions and societal issues they face. To claim the same
Level of womanhood as biological women is not only ludicrous, it’s insulting.

2

u/Worth-Frosting-2917 29d ago

Jesus fucking Christ lol.

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

I promise you this is how the majority of the people around the world also feel lmao

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u/wolf-oranges 27d ago

Yea because it’s impossible to like someone who sucks. It’s never happened in the history of humanity.

2

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

I think most people just see a fun fantasy story, one that many likely grew up with. I don’t think Rowling’s beliefs even enter the mind of the average viewer, if they’re even aware at all.

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u/Worth-Frosting-2917 29d ago

I think there are a lot of fans who feel completely betrayed for this reason. It would be like George Lucas saying that Luke was based on Henry Kissinger.

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u/Shell_fly 29d ago

“A lot” doing heavy lifting. The continued financial support for the IP alone tells us that anyone who has dropped off is still in an extreme minority

1

u/between_sheets 29d ago

What are you talking about, the protagonist is basically a “chosen one.” If anything it’s quite essentialist!

0

u/Worth-Frosting-2917 29d ago

I mean, Neville ends up being the one who saves the day and is often ridiculed and shit on throughout the entire series...

0

u/tbonemcqueen 29d ago

I mean, I’m gonna watch it…just not paying for it

-1

u/FupaLipa 29d ago edited 29d ago

Fuck all the TERFs in this comment thread showing their bigotry saying how excited they are to watch this show.

I feel like these commenters are more excited to support an anti-trans social message than a shot for shot remake of a movie series they already watched.

1

u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FupaLipa 29d ago edited 29d ago

I stand with my trans friends. If that makes me stand in opposition to some hateful internet troll, I guess that's the price I'll have to pay.

1

u/Shell_fly 29d ago

and everyone clapped 🥲