Daniel Radcliffe Reveals Bad Wizard Of Oz Pitch With Harry Potter Co-Stars

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Harry Potter looks shocked in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Published Feb 19, 2026, 6:38 PM EST

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Daniel Radcliffe shared one of the strangest pitches he encountered involving his Harry Potter co-stars Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.

During an interview on Hot Ones, the actor revealed that someone once pitched an idea for a remake of The Wizard of Oz starring the golden trio from the Harry Potter movies. According to Radcliffe, this person envisioned Watson as Dorothy while he would star as a version of the Cowardly Lion that knew karate. He could not recall which role was intended for Grint, but it was likely just as silly.

Radcliffe stated that this idea was one of the most questionable ones he had ever received. He added that this pitch came at the peak of the Harry Potter franchise and admitted that he thought it was a terrible idea. The actor starred as the titular character while Watson and Grint portrayed his best friends Hermione and Ron.

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. I can’t remember what Rupert was, and I just remember that I was going to be the lion, but also he knew karate.

Radcliffe said that although he was a teenager at the time, he already knew that such a movie should never exist. And, being a karate kicking lion in a Wizard of Oz adaptation wasn't on the top of his list when it came to roles that he would want to take on as an actor. Thankfully, the project never came to fruition (at least not in the mainstream media).

I was like a karate kicking cowardly lion. 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.

Radcliffe's films spanned from 2001 to 2011. The series quickly became one of the most iconic franchises in the world and kicked off his career. However, now the original trio will be passing the torch to the new stars of HBO's upcoming Harry Potter TV show, starring Dominic McLaughlin (Harry Potter), Alastair Stout (Ron Weasley), and Arabella Stanton (Hermione Granger).

All eight of the original Harry Potter movies can be streamed on HBO Max. The upcoming show will release on the same streaming platform in 2027. No official release date has been confirmed for the series at the time of this article's publication.