I love the Harry Potter books. I do. But on most rainy days, I would rather curl up in a blanket and binge watch the movies instead of settling down and getting absorbed in one of the books. 

For those people who think I’m absolutely crazy, hear me out. 

First of all, the original series is really really LONG. With about 4,224 pages in the series, reading a page in one minute, it takes a little more than 70 hours spent reading to get through the seven books. And if you only decide to finish one book and never pick up the rest, you’re missing out on the rest of the series. The movies, in contrast, are collectively much shorter. Each movie is a little more than two hours long, and each provides a lot of the same entertainment than in the books.

Second, one of the ways the movies have an edge is the phenomenal job in casting and acting. The actors portrayed the characters accurately and provided that many of them were only around 10 years old and most not having acted in a production before, the actors’ portrayal of their characters in the movies is something to applaud. Also, for a series that worked with four different directors, the films are surprisingly cohesive. Yes, they change stylistically to focus on a more character-led point of view, but that ultimately only helped the franchise because the “Harry Potter” films humanize the characters more, and allows for a more face to face connection on screen.

The “Harry Potter” films took away all the insignificant details and instead focused on the crux of the story. This is largely due to studio rules, movies often have time constraints, and the series is no different. But I appreciate that. Because of those constraints, the movies were able to focus on scenes and characters that really advanced the plot and for the most part, concerned the main ideas. There’s no useless characters that are just there that don’t really serve a purpose. 

Some say that the movies don’t do justice to the books, but not every movie is going to be perfect. But according to Forbes, the “Harry Potter” movies have collectively grossed over $7.7 billion. It remains one of the biggest movie franchises in the world, even years after its release. And, in my opinion, it deserves its fame and success.