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'Man's skipped math class': Fans slam David Zaslav's 'we haven’t done a Harry Potter in 15 years' statement

A user said, 'Even excluding the Fantastic Beasts franchise, we had a Harry Potter movie 11 years ago. Why is he off by four years both times?'

The 'Harry Potter' movie franchise is one of the highest-grossing films of all time. The journey of the franchise began with Danielle Radcliffe starring as the titular character in 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' (2001) and culminated with 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2' (2011). Since then, the original franchise has spawned spin-off films and franchises (such as 'Fantastic Beast'). Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson play the three main characters—Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger—in the primarily produced television series by David Heyman. Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell, and David Yates were the series' four directors.

However, according to reports, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav discussed a wide range of topics on a conference call on November 3, including his excitement for the business to capitalize on the numerous franchises it owns. The most astounding of those was the statement that if they could collaborate with author JK Rowling, they would pursue producing additional 'Harry Potter' movies, as per Hollywood Reporter. "We're going to focus on franchises," said Zaslav during the investor call. “We haven’t had a Superman movie in 13 years. We haven’t done a Harry Potter in 15 years. The DC movies and the Harry Potter movies provided a lot of profits for Warner Bros. over the past 25 years. I'd like to see if we can do something with J.K. on Harry Potter going forward.” Soon after, fans really didn't take time to correct him, and express their opinions about the statement. 

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After the statement went public, fans could barely help themselves from correcting Zaslav's maths. A fan said, "Even excluding the Justice League movies, we had a Superman movie 9 years ago. Even excluding the Fantastic Beasts franchise, we had a Harry Potter movie 11 years ago. Why is he off by four years both times?" A fan wrote, "And the last Harry Potter movie came out in 2011 so 11 years ago man's skipped math class or something." A fan tweeted, "1. The maths off 2. You have a new franchise of wizarding world movies so that counts 3. The guy who plays Harry Potter isn’t on good terms with the person who created Harry Potter 4. We don’t need another Harry Potter movie This guys really running WBD? LMAO," while another adds, "What is he even talking about? Man of Steel and Deathly Hallows: Part 2 came out in 2013 and 2011 respectively — that gives us 9 and 11 years. This man is living in 2026 it seems." Lastly, a fan commented, "He might have meant a true Harry Potter movie rather than a Wizarding World movie in general, but even with that, Deathly Hallows Part 2 came out 11 years ago, not 15."

However, there has been enough drama between the actor, Danielle Radcliffe who plays the titled character, and novelist, JK Rowling. The author has been publically and frequently transphobic and has continually doubled down on her stance via her social media feeds. The franchise's star Daniel Radcliffe has previously spoken out against the creator of his most iconic character, and while doing the rounds for his latest movie 'Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,' regurgitated his feelings on the matter.

He said, “The reason I was felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing ‘Potter,’ I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that. And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important,” reported IndieWire.

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