Basically, imagine a world where the Harry Potter books were never written. Instead, the movies were produced exactly as they were in our world, and that's all the fandom has to go on.

What would that world look like, fanfiction-wise?

 

DIDYAPUTYERNAMEINDAGOBLETOFFIYAH would probably still be a meme, but also a more widely accepted portrayal, given that it would be canon.

Less silly, charming worldbuilding, because there was very little of it in the movies.

Taure wouldn't have a whole document and imgur gallery about witches' robes.

Taure also wouldn't have written a magical theory headcanon because basically all available info on the actual mechanics of the magic system would be "spells are flashes of light and some quirky sounds".

 

So basically Taure would be a normal guy is it?

 

He'd be a Naruto fan. With entire documents on Chakra Theory.

 

The fandom would be fellating Snape even more than it is now. Also the Malfoys, probably. Truly a frightening perspective.

 

The number one thing is that they never would have stopped at eight movies and there wouldn't be an author to coax out of hiding for some spin offs; no, we'd be getting several direct sequels and Daniel Radcliffe would never have a moment of peace. I remember when he first got other work people were saying 'no, he's actually a good actor, you don't just love him because of the character he's spent the majority of his life portraying.'
No one would be quite sure if Dumbledore were gay or if he just had a sort of new testament way of telling other men he loved them. It's almost certainly something the producers would leave on the table if asked, but never confirm it until companies started spearheading pride month.
People would still not have a good reason for why the filmmakers decided to go with 'the Sorcerer's Stone' when it behaves the same way as the legendary Philosopher's Stone. I don't expect fanfictions would justifiably rebel, though; it would just be something weird.
Not only would fanfiction have started later, since the movies came out later, it would be less massive because while the first movie would have been successful, it would not have people kicking down the doors on opening night. With the sequels beyond the eighth movie, however, the franchise would pick up steam into the 2010's, assuming the writers can come up with another plot just as fun as Voldemort. Fanfiction, consequently, would be almost unrecognizable.

 

Speaking of knock-on effects, if Harry Potter started off as an original movie property we also probably wouldn't have seen as many young adult novel series getting adapted to the big screen as every studio searched for the next Harry Potter.

 

All the things that are common in fanfiction which are quite bad would become more common.

There would be a lot more Dumbledore Bashing since in the movies Dumbledore never gets to explain things like why he placed Harry with the Dursleys or that he knew that Harry would survive being killed by Voldemort.

Ron bashing would also increase since there wouldn't be the book scenes you can point out when people insult Ron and movie Ron is vastly inferior to book Ron.

There would be a lot more of Hermione as a Mary Sue, since the movies ignored most of her flaws.

Malfoys and Snape getting even more wanked has already been mentioned.

Ginny would probably become quite a bit less prominent and pairing her with Harry would be even more rare.

 

I think fanfiction for Harry Potter would be a great deal less than currently exists. DLP may not even exist if it was just the movies.

 

Truly a vision of the darkest timeline.

 

I think the interesting thing about BTT's question is how the medium of film might change fans' depictions of the Harry Potter story. One major thing is that we wouldn't have this author figure J.K. Rowling (unless she wrote the screenplays) who would revise and rethink canon. Since the eight films were written/directed/produced by different people, we have a collaborative effort and not a single auteur filmmaker who can say sth. is or isn't canon. In that sense, no one would "own" Harry Potter in the way that JKR does now, so fanfiction may thrive just as much for not having that authority. Or the films may have gone off the rails without the narrative of the originals lol.

For example, I don't subscribe to this theory but I imagine the fan theory of Draco as a werewolf would be even more popular/have more credence if we only have the pallid, haunted visual of Fenton to go off of and no text saying otherwise (since he has the Dark Mark in HBP I think we can imagine he is not a werewolf. Greyback doesn't have one for that reason as we learn in DH) and no Rowling tweets.

I agree with others though that the whimsy of the novels is lacking in the films for the most part, and this is truly the most magical parts of the books. Where the films shine, I think, is in the dark atmosphere (I'm thinking esp. of PoA, but the later films too), so maybe we would end up with more noir- and horror-inspired fanfiction (among the good fanfiction that is).

I imagine that some things would not change though. Despite the fact that Harry Potter is a series of novels, the serialization of film and television and the tendency of Hollywood to produce sequels for the $ have led to other spin-offs already such as Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts. Imagine a Snape prequel or a film focusing on James and Lily Potter ending with Harry's survival of the Killing Curse (cf. Rogue One ending with the scene of the first Stars Wars film).

 

Was Snape more or less Antagonistic in the movies than in the books? Can't really remember.

 

They toned down his abuse in the movies and generally made it a bit funnier, with better timing. They also left out the bit where Hermione was hit by the tooth-growing curse, but that could have been compression.

 

Gotcha. We'd likely see less hatred for snape then and more pro-Snape fics.