Why I'm incredibly Excited about J.K. Rowling's New Film

I have absolutely no shame in admitting how much I love Harry Potter. It will always be an enormously important and influential part of my childhood, and I still rewatch the movies and reread the books to this day. So you can probably imagine my excitement this morning, when (while waiting to inevitably get denied for tickets to see Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse) I discovered that J.K. Rowling would be penning a script for a brand new movie set in the Wizarding World that I know and love.

Based on Rowling's short guide (which in itself was a required textbook for students in the Harry Potter universe), "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" will be set about 80 years prior to the events of the Potter series. The film will supposedly follow the adventures of the book's fictitious author Newt Scamander, and many people have been hypothesizing as to whether or not the movie will have cameo appearances by other iconic characters from the series, such as Albus Dumbledore. 

However, the prospect of returning to the world of Harry Potter doesn't excite me nearly as much as the fact that the woman who created the world will be taking us back into it.  Much how the newly announced Breaking Bad spinoff "Better Call Saul" would not be as exciting if Vince Gilligan wasn't attached to produce it, a new movie based on the books by J.K. Rowling would not be nearly as newsworthy if it wasn't written by....J.K. Rowling. There is nobody else that I would trust with the responsibility of bringing fans a satisfying and welcoming return to the Wizarding World. It's nice to see original creators (like Rowling or Gilligan) sticking to their roots and pleasing the fans that they've come to gain over the years. 

Which brings me to one final point: in a world where Hollywood is looking to adapt any kind of book, toy, or board game into the next huge blockbuster, it's interesting to see a mega company such as Warner Brothers take a (presumably unfinished) script from someone who has previously only written novels and turn it into a film. For the previous Harry Potter movies, the scriptwriters already had a plethora of material to adapt into a film, but now, with no source material and an obvious desire to keep the series going, Warner Brothers went straight to the source. To be blunt; I like this, and I hope it happens more in the future. Instead of making crappy summer blockbusters, give authors (people who know how to really tell stories) a chance to pen their own films. Take, for instance, the current Game of Thrones situation. With only two books left until the TV show catches up with the books, why not let author George R.R. Martin write the sixth season of the show? It would be interesting, and I think it is potentially something that we'll be seeing more and more of.

Either way, the ten year old in me was giddy with excitement when he heard that there was more to come from the Harry Potter universe, and the 19 year old pretty much felt the same way. Too bad we'll have to wait until 2015 (at the very earliest) to find out what comes next.