J.K. Rowling

It features content to entertain fans while in quarantine.

You'll probably never see what happened today happen again on 'The Price Is Right,' plus Kermit and Chrissy Teigen's tattoo argument, J.K. Rowling wishes Draco a happy birthday and more, in today's Pop Bits.

Two decades ago, could any of us have predicted the future that awaited Harry Potter? One massively successful book expanded to seven, which begat a theme park, a universe’s worth of merchandising, eight films, a play, and a new tangentially related franchise. And for those fans who still want more Potter, there is Pottermore.

J.K. Rowling is a pretty gracious woman. Beyond giving us the Wizarding World, regularly answering Harry Potter fan questions on Twitter, and annually apologizing for character deaths, she also gives back a little. In 2008, the author wrote an idea for a Potter prequel and auctioned it off to raise funds for a literacy charity. Now someone has stolen that rare prequel, because the world is full of ungrateful muggles.

J.K. Rowling, otherwise known as the lady who wrote those books about the wizard school, has an annual tradition, started in 2015, where she apologizes for a particularly unjust death that has saddened die-hard Harry Potter fans. 2015’s apology was for Fred Weasley, one half of the Weasley twins duo that throughout the series had seemed to be inseparable. Last year’s apology was for Remus Lupin, the werewolf and one-time Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who’d ended up a close ally and friend of Harry’s. Both deaths were tragic, and yet fit with Potter’s theme of victory through self-sacrifice. The apologies both garnered mournful tweets from fans who talked about what great characters they were, and how they miss them. This year’s apology, however, split the fandom right down the middle.

"Well, the fumes from the DVDs might be toxic and I've still got your money," she wrote.

How do you make a successful Harry Potter prequel without Harry Potter? J.K. Rowling’s new spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, travels back nearly 70 years to 1926 before the events of the first Potter movie to tell a whole new story in a new setting with (almost) all new characters. Reviving the magical universe from the second biggest franchise of all time is a pretty risky move, but Fantastic Beasts does a good job of blending the familiar with the new.

J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them won’t just be a five-part return to the magical world of the Harry Potter movies; it has the potential to be groundbreaking for Hollywood diversity.

Leading up to the 15th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on November 16, we’re looking back on the series and rewatching one movie each week to see how they hold up.

Leading up to the 15th anniversary of ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ on November 16, we’re looking back on the series and rewatching one movie each week to see how they hold up.