Daniel Radcliffe was the latest guest on “Hot Ones” and revealed one of the worst pitches he’s ever gotten in his career was for a “Wizard of Oz” remake headlined by the original “Harry Potter” film franchise trio: Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. The idea was hatched during the heyday of the “Potter” movies.
“One of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard, during Potter, somebody came to us and I think asked, like they wanted to cast all three of us, me, Emma and Rupert, in a remake of ‘Wizard of Oz,’ where Emma was Dorothy,” Radcliffe said. “I can’t remember what Rupert was, and I just remember that I was gonna be the lion but also he knew karate.”
“I was like a karate kicking cowardly lion,” he continued. “And I remember I was like 14 or 15 and I was like, ‘I don’t know a lot about the world, but this is a bad idea and it should not be made.'”
This “Wizard of Oz” remake never got off the ground, although Hollywood dabbled with a return trip to Oz in 2013 with Sam Raimi’s prequel movie “Oz the Great and Powerful.” James Franco headlined the film in the title role opposite Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz as the witches of Oz. The movie was a decent box office success with nearly $500 million worldwide, although Oz truly flexed its big screen muscles with the “Wicked” movies in 2024 and 2025. The films grossed a combined $1.2 billion worldwide.
As for Radcliffe, he starred with Watson and Grint in eight “Harry Potter” movies released between 2001 and 2011. The trio’s work together on screen remains exclusively in the “Potter” movies. They reunited on television for “Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts,” which streamed in January 2022 on HBO Max.
