Chris Columbus says ‘Harry Potter’ reunion ‘impossible’ due to J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter fans shouldn’t get their hopes up for a Cursed Child movie.

Chris Columbus, who directed the first two Potter movies in the early 2000s, said that although he previously expressed interest in adapting the hit play set in the Wizarding World, he sees no chance of that materializing with the original cast due to J.K. Rowling‘s controversial views.

“It’s never going to happen,” Columbus told U.K. outlet The Times. “It’s gotten so complicated with all the political stuff. Everyone in the cast has their own opinion, which is different from her opinion, which makes it impossible.” 

Representatives for Rowling did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.

Columbus also noted that he currently has no relationship with the author, but maintains friendly contact with the actor behind the Boy Who Lived and his costars. 

“I haven’t spoken to Miss Rowling in a decade or so, so I have no idea what’s going on with her, but I keep very close contact with Daniel Radcliffe, and I just spoke to him a few days ago,” Columbus said. “I still have a great relationship with all the kids in the cast.”

Rowling has repeatedly described herself as a TERF, or trans-exclusionary radical feminist. The author has routinely posted anti-trans rhetoric, stating that she’d “happily do two years” in prison rather than support policies protecting transgender people from hate crimes, and publicly celebrating a U.K. Supreme Court decision that ruled that womanhood is legally defined by biological sex. 

Rowling’s comments have placed her at odds with many of the actors who starred in the Potter films, including Radcliffe, who penned a statement supporting the trans community shortly after the author’s views generated controversy.

“It makes me really sad, ultimately,” Radcliffe later said of Rowling’s position. “I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is, to me, so deeply empathic.”

Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in all eight films in the original series, shared a similar statement supporting the trans community around the same time as Radcliffe.

Rowling later suggested that she would not forgive Radcliffe and Watson for their positions because they “cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights.”

Radcliffe previously said that he wasn’t interested in returning to the world of Harry Potter with The Cursed Child or anything else for the foreseeable future. “I’m getting to a point where I feel like I made it out of Potter okay and I’m really happy with where I am now, and to go back would be such a massive change to my life,” he said in 2022. “I’m never going to say never, but the Star Wars guys had like 30, 40 years before they went back.”

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But the Harry Potter franchise lives on. A TV reboot with an all-new cast is on its way, and HBO CEO Casey Bloys said Rowling is “fairly involved” with the production. However, he noted that the author’s anti-trans positions have not notably influenced the series. “It hasn’t affected the casting or hiring of writers or production staff or anything, so we haven’t felt any impact from that.”