While the Fantastic Beasts movies, which served as a spin-off prequel to the Harry Potter novel and film series, failed to generate interest levels appropriate to the franchise's previous entries, the performance of Hogwarts Legacy has executives at Warner Bros. Discovery believing there’s a new chapter in store for their cash cow IP.
As of now, nothing is yet confirmed regarding the future of the Wizarding World franchise. But more and more people in positions of power over at Warner Bros. Discovery are teasing new installments.
Most recently we had the president of Warner Bros. Game president David Haddad confirm plans for Hogwarts Legacy sequels by calling the IP a "long-term franchise".
On Wednesday, Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels shared his thoughts on the studio's promising future while speaking during a panel at Morgan Stanley's investor conference. This is what Wiedenfels had to say about their plans moving forward:
Take ‘Harry Potter’ as an example, the Wizarding World, the fact that we are enjoying this massive success with the ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ launch, 12 years after the last film came out, shows that there is so much opportunity and we’re only just starting to expand that. We’ve got the new ‘Harry Potter’ tour coming up in Tokyo in the middle of the year. Long story short, I think this one-company approach, great leadership in the individual business units, but coordinated franchise management is probably one of the biggest opportunities the company has.
And while this is great news considering ‌the disappointing box office performance of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore last year, the hope is that whatever Warner Bros. is planning, it will be something new and creative. They’ve already signed up to create new The Lord of the Rings movies, so hopefully, they have a plan for both franchises in mind.
In the meantime, Hogwarts Legacy has been breaking records left and right despite still being less than a month old. However, only current-gen console owners have been able to enjoy it, with the PS4 and Xbox One release date for Hogwarts Legacy being pushed back further than the original timeline. Players have raved about the gameplay magical beasts have introduced to Hogwarts Legacy, so much so that a Hogwarts Legacy TV show on HBO Max might be on the cards given the success of the Last of Us adaptation.
