There’s no doubt thatHarry Potteris one of the most popular franchises out there, as proved by its ever-growing continuation with media likeFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Themand the stage playHarry Potter and the Cursed Child. When the first books and movies came out, everyone suddenly wished they had also received a Hogwarts letter, and you’ll often still hear people talking aboutwhat Hogwarts housethey would be in. The author of the books, J.K. Rowling, created a world that allowed people all around the world, regardless of their age, to escape their own reality and find comfort and excitement in Harry’s world.
However, despite the deeply rooted love and overall hype around the movies which are based on the books, everything released since, clearly in an effort to continue on with the universe of the wizarding world, seems to be greeted with mixed feelings and is not doing nearly as well as the first series. This, of course, does extend toHarry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Written and performed as a play, it brings along a significant problem. Since the play is bound to specific theater locations, it makes it hard for many fans even to get the chance to see it and form an opinion on it if no one is performing it near them. Of course, the script was also released in book form to help reach wider audiences, but it simply is not the same experience as watching it live. The book misses a lot of the tone and inflection an actual performance would carry, which has caused a lot of irritation among readers who are used to the profound and wonderfully connected writing style of Rowling. While making the play into a movie would make it more accessible, it risks a similar failure to the onetheFantastic Beastsfranchise metfor several reasons.
Update July 02, 2025: This article has been updated with more information about whether an adaption ofHarry Potter and the Cursed Childis a good idea and drawing parallels to another similar franchise.
Cursed Child Doesn’t Feel Like Harry Potter
While set in the same world and still including many settings and characters well-recognized in theHarry Potterfranchise, there is definitely a disconnect between the original series and the play. When first entering the wizarding world, the sense of wonder is what strikes you as you learn more about magic and the wizarding world overall. Then, throughout the seven books, you still get to see magic and mystery even as dark forces begin to take control and come back.
At its heart, the story is a magical adventure.Cursed Child, however, is a drama. You lose some of the magic, which undoubtedly should be the heart of the entire storyline.Cursed Childmisses the entire point of what makes the original Harry Potter movies stand out, and fans are definitely not here for it. As fans began to watch and read the play, some were left unsatisfied,often calling it a bad fan-fictionin theHarry Potterworld.
The Play Contradicts The Original Stories
Many fans call the play “not canon compliant,” meaning they don’t believe this existed in the same universe at all and pretend Harry’s story ended after the first series. A lot of this is due to some plot devices that either forgot what the series had set up for them or chose to ignore these details in order to tell the story they wanted to tell. It’s all led to a plot thatnot many people are fans of.
Perhaps the biggest issue in the play is the time turners. Though the movie skips over this detail, inHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, while fighting in the Ministry of Magic, the entire stock of time turners is rendered unusable. There are also many rules surrounding them, including how hard it is to get a hold of one, as well as the fact that you can only go back about five hours without doing any serious damage to the timeline.Cursed Childfeatures a set of new, illegal time turners that seemed to be made just for the plot, and they aren’t restricted by five hours. Instead, it lets them travel as far back in time as they want, but only for five minutes. Of course, those five minutes can still cause irreparable damage, just as it seems to do in the play.
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Other smaller details can be issues, too, and if there is one thing that can be said for sure, then it is that the Harry Potter fandom is incredibly dedicated to connecting the dots and pointing out the tiniest yet important details. Another one is the epilogue where we see Harry telling his youngest son, Albus, that he doesn’t have to be scared of the possibility of being sorted into Slytherin, and tells him that if he really is that scared, he can always ask the sorting hat to not put him there, as Harry did. Not only does this not happen, and Albus gets sorted into Slytherin anyway, but his sorting seems to be one of the main reasons there even is any dramatic plot, as Harry doesn’t seem to like this outcome. For a series as big as this one, it really can be the little things that make the fans upset.
Characters Were Nearly Unrecognizable
From beloved characters returning in ways that didn’t seem like themselves to new characters with connections that seemed to come out of nowhere, the play didn’t do well in the character area. At first, it seems the characters might be alright — Hermione is the Minister of Magic, and Ginny works as the sports editor for the Daily Prophet — but they don’t feel quite like themselves whenever they’re on stage together.
It only gets worse as the timeline starts shifting, with Hermione becoming a worse teacher to the students than Snape was, Ron being cast off to the side and all but forgotten, and even Cedric Diggory living past the Triwizard Tournament to become a Death Eater. Nothing they did made them feel like the same characters as those we knew. Harry especially seemed to be the worst for fans, as he doesn’t feel like the hero of the previous story anymore, but only as a bad father who also feels out of character.
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One of the play’s new characters also caused a stir. It doesn’t help that a play doesn’t often get much exposition, especially for minor characters, so you lose a lot of the personal connection and understanding with them. This is exactly the case with Delphi, the friend turned foe, when she revealed herself to be influencing the plot in her favor, convincing Albus to go back in time to fix things but merely trying to create the future she wanted.
That is, she wants her father back: none other than Voldemort himself. Apparently, sometime before his demise in the seventh book, he and Bellatrix Lestrange not only had an affair but an entire child, for she died in the Battle of Hogwarts as well. Without any setup from the books to make this even seem possible, it’s the driving point that turned many fans away from the series and would mean a movie would meet the same cold reception that they had given the play.
Fandom Repeats Itself
When one looks at a lot of the plot details present inHarry Potter and the Cursed Childand sees fans' responses to it, it is very similar to how fans responded toStar Wars: The Last Jedi. Even having the approval of original author J.K. Rowling did not make fans happy with these choices for the classic book series as they have now expressed a certain amount of ownership over the material to know better. While this is certainly complicated by Rowling’s recent controversial comments, which means thebest hope for the franchise is for her not to be in control, it still speaks to a more significant issue.
Complaints about the time turners are similar to how fans responded to light-speed raming. Harry’s characterization is very similar to Luke Skywalker, as fans didn’t like seeing the character they knew as the hero from the first series older and slightly more flawed. Even the idea of bringing back Harry, Ron, and Hermoine in their later years after the original story is very similar to Disney’sStar Wars, withThe Force Awakensbringing back Luke, Han, and Leia. Notably,The Cursed Childwas released in 2016 betweenThe Force AwakensandThe Last Jedi. This wasthe height of the legacy sequel crazeand when it was at its most popular, both commercially and critically.
It is clear that while fans are nostalgic for these properties and want to see their old favorites return, they are also very particular about the circumstances of their return. They want it done a certain way, abiding by certain rules of their headcanon, and anything that breaks away can be controversial. Warner Bros. would certainly make a lot of money bringing back Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson in aForce Awakens-style movie, andthe franchise certainly needs a rebound. Yet it could also result in a similar fandom discourse that overtookStar Wars.
Is The Cursed Child A Real Possibility
Ultimately, to create even the slightest amount of excitement for a possible movie adaptation ofCursed Child, fans of the franchise would wish for their favorite characters to return, bringing along some of the magic that the viewers appreciated over many years. The continuation ofHarry Potterwould require a significant connection to the original movies. Obviously, aCursed Childmovie could perhaps cause a positive spark is if stars like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint returned to the magical world of Hogwarts. However,Radcliffe has made it clear he has no interest in returning to the franchiseanytime soon.
It is safe to say that the stars are not aligning when it comes to aCursed Childmovie. However, it seems as though the time is right to move on from the original cast and offer the new generationa modern and more accurate approach to J.K. Rowling’s wonderful world of magic. Warner Bros. has now shifted all of its focus onto a reboot of the Harry Potter books as a show for Max, promising more of the same. It is clear that instead of pushing the material forward with new ideas, it will repeat itself. It is similar toStar Wars, as the franchise continues to repeat itself in favor of daring to go somewhere new.
