As said before is no happening, Rowling wanted a movie to begin with and wanted live-action(IIRC Nintendo offered her even more money for Harry potter rights but Nintendo wanted was an animated movie + series but Warner promised her a movie, a full fledge live-action prestige movie)
WI: No Harry Potter movies, but a TV series franchise in the 2000s
- Thread starter saltburn861
- Start date
But if Rowling wanted a TV show ITTL as she wanted a movie in OTL, I think HBO would possibly buy it as they had the money and the growing audience. If not them, then perhaps NBC.
I expect, ITTL, we may or may not have had UBOS: Ultimate Book of Spells, a Canadian cartoon that ran from April 2001 to September 2002, and is largely obscure nowadays; it was Harry Potter-inspired.
For an idea what a Harry Potter tv series would have looked like. Rowling wasn't exactly original.
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I remember THAT! The kids in high school used to consider it a bit of a joke, to be honest!
Yes I remember my nephew moaning about Harry Potter rip offs. He didn't know the Worst Witch books were written 20 years before Harry Potter reach the publishers.
Hmmm... well, maybe some stuff happens in cinema that turns her to television or perhaps consistent income. I mean, it's possible since the popularity of the books might lead to it. Around the 2000s, we do have shows like Buffy, Heroes and Supernatural, so I imagine it would be possible, but it'd just require careful balancing regarding ptactical effecs and special effects.
I think that they'd be able to do a bit more world-building, at least with the British. It may not become as big, but that might be to its benefit and it may be able to stay closer to its British roots. It would also butterfly away the YA novel adaptation craze in cinema and might shift over to television. Vampire Diaries might be replaced by Twilight and some more YA novels might get television adaptations that would it fare better like say Percy Jackson, especially if it gets more prominence with the United States.
I think that they'd be able to do a bit more world-building, at least with the British. It may not become as big, but that might be to its benefit and it may be able to stay closer to its British roots. It would also butterfly away the YA novel adaptation craze in cinema and might shift over to television. Vampire Diaries might be replaced by Twilight and some more YA novels might get television adaptations that would it fare better like say Percy Jackson, especially if it gets more prominence with the United States.
Interesting... hadn't thought of the YA novel adaptation craze of the 2000s.
So, ITTL, Twilight could become a series, and as for Fifty Shades of Grey, presumably that may or may not exist?
That would be on after hours for whatever network has after hours programs. I think it’s showtime but it could be HBO.
Xenia warrior princess would have just ended. So another large scale tv show would have been welcome by networks.
Harry Potter is not likely to be a TV show in the mould of Xena. It's likely to be two to four episodes per book, each episode (without ad breaks) clocking in at close to an hour long. J.K. Rowling's shown us how she likes her books adapted for TV with the Cormoran Strike series.
And she's already making enough money from the books by 2001 to tell anyone who doesn't like how she wants things to be done to go and stick their heads down a toilet and flush repeatedly. (For that matter, Wikipedia gives a 2001 release date for at least one Harry Potter computer game, so she's not just making money from the books, but the computer game income is starting to come in too.)
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2-4 episodes sound little. It can work with the first books, but from Goblet of Fire onwards, it would need more episodes. While that increases shooting times, it also offsets fixed costs like sets and wardrobes. Of course, it also means more revenue. And while CGI at that time isn't up to scratch (or it's too expensive. Lord of the Rings CGI holds up perfectly well up to today, but I doubt a 2000s TV show will expend that much), there are also fixed costs in 3d models, as Game of Thrones show. Once you've modeled a creature (ie, dragons), you still have the costs of animating, rendering and composing the creature in the scene. But the cost of modelling and texturing the creature is also offset in as many episodes you include it. So while it's non trivial to add acromantulas to the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, if they were already designed for season 2 (if), then they can repeat at the cost of animating, rendering and composing. The same for dementors, house elves and goblins.
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Sort of like how Dragon Ball Z overtook the source material while the manga was being written, witth filler arcs in the 1990s and 2000s anime?
Farscape dates from the same period, which used the awesome power of the Jim Henson Creature Company for puppetry (they would almost certainly be used in a HP TV show). That gives you an idea for what you could use for close-up work - e.g. puppets for the House Elves, rather than the kind of bad CGI Dobby from Chamber. Plus, it also means that you could have more of them in one scene.
As for CGI, it was being used more often in Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Voyager, which are both from around the same period. The dragons and the basilisk might look more "meh" than spectacular, but the likes of Species 8472 is a decent idea for how it could be used.
As for CGI, it was being used more often in Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Voyager, which are both from around the same period. The dragons and the basilisk might look more "meh" than spectacular, but the likes of Species 8472 is a decent idea for how it could be used.
I think it might be easier to bump the POD back a few years, before Pottermania really had a chance to start, maybe with the release of the first or second book. That way, if someone at say BBC was interested they could negotiate with a Rowling who didn't have the massive and growing impact of the series behind her.
Here's an old thread that had a few interesting ideas: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/harry-potter-and-the-small-screen.254463/
Here's an old thread that had a few interesting ideas: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/harry-potter-and-the-small-screen.254463/
Lethal White - one of the more recent Cormoran Strike books and the most recent (as of the time and date of this post) TV adaptation clocks in at 656 pages (more than any Harry Potter book except Order of the Phoenix) and as a four episode TV adaptation...
(Note that these are UK episodes which air on the BBC with a slightly under one hour running time, but no advert breaks; throw in advert breaks and I guess running time would at least double, given how much some broadcasters want you to go off and make a mug of tea or sandwich and miss them telling you all about the latest new motor-car or bathroom cleaning agent.)
The UK Anglia Television game show Knightmare was doing some interesting experiments with blue screen chroma key in the late 1980's/early 1990's...