The idea of extending a blockbuster franchise into more film iterations than originally intended is nothing new—The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 hits theaters this fall as the fourth installment of a trilogy, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows was infamously split into two movies, and The Hobbit somehow became a sprawling three-part epic that over-delivered on the sprawling and choked on the epic. When it comes to the stage though, it seems a little odd to push audiences out halfway through a story and ask them to come back months later to wrap things up. According to The Hollywood Reporter, that’s essentially what’s happening with J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, a play the author announced she’s writing in collaboration with English playwright Jack Thorne earlier this year. Rowling took to Twitter to announce the news:
In a follow-up on the all-things-Potter site Pottermore, which just got a complete redesign and new story from Rowling on the Potter family history, director John Tiffany was quoted as saying the play “shares a scale and ambition with all the Harry Potter stories so in order to do this justice we have decided to present the play in two parts.” Not much is known about the material other than the fact that it won’t be a prequel and Harry isn’t the cursed child—and while the good news is this split might genuinely be fueled by creativity, the bad news is you won’t be able to skip the first part in the hopes you can catch it on Netflix just before Part 2 debuts. The play (a portion of it, at any rate) is still scheduled to hit London’s West End summer 2016, and you can register for priority booking at HarryPotterthePlay.com.