**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hogwarts Recasted, Witchcraft Canceled: Fandoms Unite in Collective Meltdown Over ‘Potter’ Reboot

London, UK – In a move that has simultaneously broken the internet and brought peace to the Middle East (results pending), Warner Bros. Discovery has officially announced the cast for the upcoming HBO “Harry Potter” television series, and the internet is not okay.

Breaking from tradition, the studio has hired no one. In a press release, the showrunner stated the series will be told entirely from the perspective of a sentient, CGI Sorting Hat, voiced by a heavily-processed Gilbert Gottfried AI. “We felt the original films were too human-centric,” the statement read. “Fans want to see the struggles of a 500-year-old hat making life-altering decisions for traumatized 11-year-olds.”

The actual casting of fan-favorite characters, however, has triggered the most chaotic and ironic backlash since the “Cursed Child” novel was written by a trolling Quill.

The new iteration features a radical reimagining of the “Golden Trio”:

• Harry Potter will be played by Pete Davidson, who approached the role methodically by getting “The Dark Mark” tattooed on his forehead (it was a temporary sticker of a raccoon, but the intention was there).
• Hermione Granger is now portrayed by a “very aggressive rescue chicken,” trained to cluck “Wingardium Levio-sah” on command. PETA has called it “the most accurate depiction of a book-accurate know-it-all to date.”
• Ron Weasley has been replaced by a sentient, anxiety-ridden gingerbread man from the “Shrek” universe, who only speaks in quotes from “Shrek 2.”

The fandom’s ironic meltdown over “wokeness” and