What do we think?

Overall it looks good. I like that the adults are being depicted as closer to their book ages. And generally the inclusion of more book scenes.

If people were hoping for significant amounts of original content to flesh it out, there doesn't seem to be much of that.

 

Dumbledore with a tuning fork seems to be a new scene not in the books?

 

In my opinion they really should lean into an ensemble aspect of this for the series to work. Make teachers and other students as important, with their own adventures each season, if smaller, since the Trio will always be the most important. That way it can be something new and amazing. Otherwise, it will be just longer movies with a smaller budget.

 

The budget is actually bigger. USD 1.2 billion per season.

 

There is no way it should cost that much per season, unless someone is really bad with its management. The Rings of Power costs half of that and it doesn't have any real world scenes or a singular location to keep it down.

Still, I was expecting them to be a lot cheaper after they cut budgets for their HotD series. I suppose they really can't afford it to fail.

 

Knowing Dumbledore that's probably a desonificator, every wizarding teacher needs them, and muggle teachers would kill for owning one.

 

Sad that Dumbledore doesn't have the full pointy hat. If there's any person who wouldn't go more modern with the wardrobe it would be him. Oh well.

 

The budget includes the cost of building permanent sets in what has been described as a “mini city”. Which will be turned into a tourist attraction once filming is done.

 

Honestly, it looks really promising. I'm trying hard not to get excited by it. You can tell that they're making a big effort. I'm stunned it's Xmas this year, that's insane.

Might take a bit to get used to new actors for the characters - we've had decades of others play that role. But I'm buzzing having seen that.

 

I don't think I'll watch it. There's something very uncanny valley about the whole thing, and the tone (just judging by the trailer) seems to be very grim. I'm not fully against remakes in principle, when they're warranted (see Dune or Percy Jackson), but in my opinion, the corpse of the films isn't even cold, and they didn't really lack much. If anything, I think you could criticise them for being too faithful. It all just feels very cynical.