A Harry Potter cartoon - could it work?

D

daniellenmack

New member
I've been toying with the idea for a while.

I suppose at this point adapting the books wouldn't be necessary, but I could see an animated spin-off taking place after the book series following Harry and Ron's Auror adventures.
 
I always think ANY story can be adapted to animation. A lot of people don't realise this, but the cost of building live-action sets and using extensive CG effects and animation (for the mythical creatures in HP) is a bit much.

Even before the live-action movies, I'd always thought the stories in my head would work out with very Disney-esque character designs. All that is needed for a team of background painters to paint some backgrounds of the Hogwarts campus, place some cels of Harry, Hagrid and the others over them (this was in the pre-digital I&P days when I was thinking about this) and viola!

And for special effects, like magic, fire, etc., there's nothing wrong with a separately-filmed magic/fire cel (with the surrounding area painted black so a backlight can be shone through, and possibly with an appropriately-coloured filter) double-exposed over the character animation. Easy as pie!
 
The only way it could work is if it was another adaptation; that is, if they started over from the beginning (i.e., from Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone). It would need to be a direct adaptation of the original books. That said, if they were going to do an animated series, Warner Bros. would have done that instead of the movies, so IMO it's very unlikely that there will be any animated version of Harry Potter.

I say all this, because the fans would be incensed if WB made a show that was a "continuation" (i.e., following on from Deathly Hollows) featuring original stories w/o the involvement of Rowling.
 
Could it work? Of course. The real question is if there should be a cartoon. The answer is yes, but not anytime soon. Since WB moved the next movie to 2009 we'll be getting three movies in two years. I think audiences may want a little break.
 
The question should be why hasn't this happened yet?

I've only seen the first movie and read the first book, but I'd definitely check out a Harry Potter cartoon if they made one.

Disney would've been all over this if they owned the franchise.
 
This is a joke,right? Oh,yeah,you could make one all right and it'd probably do really well.But thats just furthering the franchise.Whenever you make more of something it's almost always for money (mainly) and HP already has a book & movie deal going on.Seriously,why make it a cartoon?Now an animated movie may not be to bad,but an ongoing cartoon?Oh,lord.We need some originality.

So my answer if you haven't already figured it out is a no.:
 
I remember before the movies I imagined a cartoon series. Of coarse it can work but the chances of it ever coming out are slim to none because of the movies.
 
No one would want to see a Harry Potter cartoon without Harry. It would be like some network doing a show set in the Batman universe, but without Batman.


Oh, wait...

birds_of_prey.jpg
 
I don't know, I think they could do a show about kids at Hogwarts that didn't have Harry in it. It'd be no better or worse up front than any other schoolyard cartoon, and would have the benefit of the Potterverse backstory. It would also remove the possibility that people would know what happens next, and let the show explore some of the unanswered questions of Harry Potter.

I always thought it would have been cool to see the Harry Potter movies animated in the style of Marie GrandPre's drawings. As it stands, I didn't really believe the live-action movies until #3, although that might have just been Chris Columbus' direction as much as anything else.

On an entirely different note, I think the whole point of Birds of Prey was that Batman cast an incredibly long shadow over Gotham that's still present when he's gone. Like the Catwoman movie, the fact that the show was nearly unwatchable had very little to do with the lack of Batman -- crappy writing, crappy characterization, and a Black Canary that totally misses the point of the character worked their magic all by themselves. Batman's prominent presence sure didn't help Batman & Robin or Batman Forever any, after all. They could go that same route by putting a Harry Potter cartoon at Hogwarts well after Harry's time, just to show what a huge impact he had on the world. For that matter, they could also go back in time and follow Daddy and Mommy Potter in their time at Hogwarts.

-- Ed
 
As soon as it became a success way back in the last millennium, I was sure a Harry Potter cartoon was coming to Kids WB...but it didn't come.

My guess is if they COULD make one, they would have already, but everything cinematic has to be screened past Rowling, and she won't allow it. Again, this is my GUESS.
 
I think it could work and would love to see it. But yah right now wheir working with the movies, I'm still angry at the fact that they pushed the 6th movie back. I wanted to see it, I've been waiting and waiting and waiting!!!
 
I agree with you. A Harry Potter cartoon series could work out, if done in the right way, but if that was going to happen then it would have been done years ago. The books and the current live-action movies make huge money already and an animated series would just be milking the franchise even more. I wouldn't mind seeing an animated movie either, which might turn out better than a series depending on the writing and voice acting, but I doubt that they're going to do either one anytime soon.

Slightly off-topic, but there was a series with Batman's daughter in it? Now I'll have to look it up to satisfy my curious nature.
 
I'd be willing to bet that a major part as to why a Harry Potter cartoon hasn't been made yet is because

a) The seventh book was only released last year. Making any sort of cartoon before that - be it a prequel, direct adaptation, or sequel - would be liable to leaving out certain plot elements or creating plot holes, unless the producers were willing to go the Fullmetal Alchemist route and have it diverge from the main plotline (which Rowling would NEVER allow)
&
b) Warner Bros. maintains complete control over the property, and probably figure having the ongoing movie series and a TV series at the same time would saturate the property.

On a similar note I remember Steven Spielberg had wanted to direct the first Harry Potter film and have it be animated with Haley Joel Osmont as the voice of Harry. Obviously it never came to pass, mainly because of J.K. Rowling's objection to having an American boy portraying a British character like Harry (further trivia: Liam Aiken was scheduled to play Harry in the original Philosopher's Stone film, however, as he was only half-British, he was dropped from the project in favor of Daniel Radcliffe).

I'm having a difficult time deciding where I would want a Harry Potter series to go. Perhaps, like I said, a direct sequel about Harry's post-Hogwarts life, except the lack of details provided by Rowling would require a more creative effort on the part of the animators themselves. A direct adaptation of the books? I'd kind of like this actually, if it would streamline the series as successfully as The Spectacular Spider-Man has. I actually think this would be the best route to take a series, as I assume it'd be launched well after the film series is ended.
 
Anything plus Harry Potter will make money, regardless of what it is. The same goes for Star Wars and I think the godsawful recent movie has proven my point.
 
I think the movies will make anything look pretty bad by comparison, but I suppose it's doable. It would be essential to not tone it down for kids, though. If the kids can read through the books and go see the movies, they can sure see bad stuff happening to Harry and his friends in a cartoon. Only do it if it can be done with integrity.
 
Harry Potter and the Pseudo British Accents

"Bloomin' eck, Airy, it's eenother wonderful tarm at 'Ogwarts"
"Quite so, Ron. I wonder what danger we will encounter this term, pip pip"
"Blimey, I 'ope we dun't ancounter that evil lard Vuldermore!"
 
Back
Top