I, and many others, have grown up reading, watching, and following J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Harry Potter has touched many hearts and lives throughout the years, and its impact is extraordinary. For me, personally, all things Harry Potter became an important facet of my life. I remember investing hours reading the books and being immersed in the pages. I remember getting a boxed set of the films contained in a box shaped like Harry’s trunk. I remember the bittersweet moment of buying tickets for the midnight showing of the eighth and final film, and then literally sobbing with my friends when it was all over. And, in my admittedly nerdiest of Harry Potter-related moments, I remember obsessively checking the Pottermore website and answering the daily trivia question in order to be one of the 100,000 to get into beta testing for Pottermore.com (and I did get in!). Yeah, you could say I was (and still am) a pretty big Harry Potter fan!
While J.K. Rowling still keeps us updated with new revelations and information about the characters and the world she has created, we haven’t really gotten any remarkable news about Harry Potter until very recently. In the past months, new information was released about a stage play sequel to the Harry Potter series, set in the future after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows epilogue. The play, titled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is set to premiere next summer in London’s West End. I’m hoping and praying that the play will also premiere in the United States, because I would LOVE to know what happens to Harry and his family. The cast hasn’t been set yet either, so we all still have a lot of news to look out for to keep us Harry Potter nerds excited.
As if a sequel wasn’t enough, a spinoff movie was also announced by Rowling, which is set to premiere in Fall of 2016. The spinoff will be based on a fictional textbook from the Harry Potter world titled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The film, which has the same title as the book, stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, the author of the Fantastic Beasts book. Recently, images of Redmayne and the cast on set were released. All of the images can be viewed on the Fantastic Beasts Facebook page here. While the movie is set many years before the original series, it is exciting to see more into the world J.K. Rowling has created.
With all of this news about the Harry Potter world being released, I can’t help but think of J.K. Rowling’s words at the premiere of the final film: “Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” Because while Harry Potter and the world he lived in was such an important aspect of my and many others’ childhoods, we will always have the memories of enjoying the stories as we grow older. I found solace in this when the series had ended with the last film, but it’s so exciting to have new things to look forward to in the Harry Potter universe. Even though most of us who grew up with Harry Potter are now adults, the upcoming Harry Potter sequel and spinoff gives us a nostalgic reminder of something meaningful from our past, and something totally awesome to look forward to in the future.