Imagining What The Harry Potter Franchise Could Have Looked Like If It Adopted Marvel's Movie/TV Model

In the matter of a decade, Marvel movies have redefined how fans see their favorite characters come to the big screen and on their televisions. After interconnecting 23 movies into an incredible saga that saw the Avengers coming together from all corners of the galaxy (and segments of time) and saving the universe for Endgame. And now, the franchise has moved to a model that has fans enjoying series in between their event films such as WandaVision and Loki. And it had us thinking. What if the Harry Potter movies had adopted the same model as the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

At the time the Harry Potter movies first began to hit theaters, there was no such thing as HBO Max or even streaming services. Warner Bros is reportedly developing a series for HBO Max based in the Wizarding World with the possibility of J.K. Rowling’s universe expanding on screen. But if we could use a Time-Turner and see the original series be adapted amidst extra streaming content, specifically if they had incorporated TV series to release between movies, here’s what we think it could have looked like.

Hogwarts grounds in Harry Potter movie, Prisoner of Azkaban

(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

A Hogwarts Founders Show (Following Sorcerer’s Stone)

First stop on this train down dream lane would be the first show that could've succeeded Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Since the first movie introduces audiences to Hogwarts and the Wizarding World at large from a kids’ point of view, the perfect way to launch this model would be through a series about the founders of Hogwarts. The first Harry Potter movie already gets audiences curious through the chocolate frogs with the cards of the founders.

This series would center on the four witches and wizards who established the school and created the houses based on each of their names: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. It’d be an awesome extra dive into the lore without touching the first movie itself.

Hagrid and Buckbeak in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

Hagrid’s Dragons (Following Chamber Of Secrets)

After Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, perhaps Warner Bros would want to bring in a more lighthearted series focused on fan-favorite, Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid. Throughout the first two movies (and in the upcoming Prisoner of Azkaban) Hagrid’s intriguing life on the outskirts of Hogwarts with his pets and such are briefly shown, but it would be fun to see a Hagrid-focused series where we get a closer look into the creatures in his life and perhaps a deeper look into the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid’s Dragons could even inspire a Forbidden Forest series itself later on.

David Thewlis as Remus Lupin in Harry Potter movie

(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

A Dark Arts Anthology Series (After Prisoner Of Azkaban)

One interesting aspect of the Harry Potter movies is how the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors always end up spelling trouble at Hogwarts. And while we definitely learn about each of them throughout the movies, after Prisoner of Azkaban, it would have been cool to see each of them being highlighted in an anthology series called Dark Arts. Each season or episode could focus on a new dark arts teacher in a way that gives audiences some entertaining context about them. It could start with Remus Lupin and perhaps cycle through Dolores Umbridge, Mad-Eye Moody, Gilderoy Lockhart and so forth.

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter playing Quidditch

(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

A Quidditch World Cup Series (After Goblet Of Fire)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire gets into a lot about the competition that goes on between wizarding schools, including through the 1994 Quidditch World Cup, which the movie really doesn’t delve too much into, for the sake of time. After Goblet of Fire, there could be a series that focuses on the event specifically, perhaps through a different point of view than Harry Potter. There’s a lot of moving parts that go down during the World Cup, maybe each episode could be through a different character’s perspective to cover the full story of the key Harry Potter event.

Gary Oldman as Sirius Black in Harry Potter

(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

A Sirius Black Series (After Order of Phoenix)

Gary Oldman’s Sirius Black is one of the most beloved characters in the Harry Potter franchise and fans have always wanted to see the character be explored in a larger capacity. If the franchise adopted the Marvel movie/TV model, Warner Bros could do so with a Sirius spinoff series, following his tragic death in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The series could fill in the gaps of the movies and dive in character’s past. This one can be likened to Loki, which brought back a beloved character after his initial death in Infinity War.

Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies

(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

A Dumbledore Series (Following Half-Blood Prince)

Another rather mysterious but very important aspect of Harry Potter is Hogwarts’ headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. And a good time to highlight the character would come after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince once the storyline involving him and the Curse on Marvolo Gaunt's ring is revealed. After Half-Blood briefly gets into the ring, a series about Dumbledore could go back and tell the story of how he managed to track it down in more depth along with giving audiences more insight into the character before Deathly Hallows concludes the franchise.

The Death Eaters, Malfoys and Beatrix Lastrange

(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

A Death Eaters Series (Between The Deathly Hallows Films)

In the moment between the Deathly Hallows movies, it would have been helpful to have seen a series about the Death Eaters, aka the followers of Lord Voldemort. It could give some additional context to important characters in association with the Battle of Hogwarts including the Malfoys, Bellatrix Lestrange, Peter Pettigrew and Severus Snape in the middle of the chaos about to go down in the finale.

Marauders Map in the Harry Potter movie

(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

The Marauders Show (Following Deathly Hallows Part 2)

The Marvel movie/TV model opens a lot of doors for the Harry Potter series to continue way past Deathly Hallows Part 2, but for the sake of this article, we’ll end things after the final installment of the original series. The natural next series that could really tie together the scope of this model would be one about The Marauders, which consisted of Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black and James Potter. We’ve mentioned many of these characters already for other shows, and a Marauders show could intersect them all in a series about the four Gryffindor classmates at the beginning of their friendship. This could honestly be a movie series in of itself, but a longform streaming series would be a great way for Warner Bros to cap off the saga between its films and other shows.

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Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.