Disney Officially Finds Its Wizard Show With Better Magic System Than Harry Potter

Disney+ may have found its next big wizarding playground. Rick Riordan’s The Kane Chronicles is officially in development as a live-action series at Disney+, with 20th Television producing and Riordan teaming with Angela Robinson to write and executive produce. Rebecca Riordan, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, and Jeremy Bell are also attached as executive producers (via TheWrap).

The proposed series centers on Carter and Sadie Kane, estranged siblings who discover that they descend from powerful Egyptian magicians after their father unleashes an ancient god and disappears. Riordan’s original The Red Pyramid introduces the pair through Egyptian gods, inherited magic, and a secret order stretching back to the pharaohs. There is one crucial caveat: Disney+ has not ordered the series yet. There is no announced cast, production date, episode count, trailer, or premiere date.

Still, the prospect is mouthwatering for fantasy fans. Calling The Kane Chronicles’ magic ‘better’ than Harry Potter is an opinion, not a measurable fact, but Riordan gives his system more explicit branches, ranks, divine rules, and specialized magical disciplines. If complexity and structure are the yardsticks, Carter and Sadie have a serious argument.

The Kane Chronicles Gets Another Shot After Netflix

The Throne of Fire, Kane Chronicles/ Credits: Rick Riordan

This is not Hollywood’s first attempt to bring the Kanes to the screen. Netflix previously developed The Kane Chronicles as feature films, with The Red Pyramid intended as the starting point, before that adaptation was abandoned. The new version moves the property from film to television and places it at Disney+, home of Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Riordan’s trilogy consists of The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire, and The Serpent’s Shadow. Across the books, Carter and Sadie train young magicians at Brooklyn House, confront Egyptian gods, and eventually face Apophis, the embodiment of chaos threatening the world. 

Television could give that material considerably more breathing room than a feature-film trilogy. The Throne of Fire alone expands Brooklyn House into a training ground for young magicians and sends the Kanes searching for sections of the Book of Ra while preparing to stop Apophis. The creative team also gives readers reason for cautious optimism. Robinson’s television credits include How to Get Away with Murder and True Blood, while Riordan will be directly involved as writer and executive producer rather than watching another adaptation develop from the sidelines. 

Why The Kane Chronicles’ Magic Can Rival Harry Potter

Credit:- Warner Bros.

Hogwarts built its magical identity around spells, charms, potions, magical creatures, and wands used to channel a witch or wizard’s power. The official Harry Potter encyclopedia calls the wand the most important magical tool a witch or wizard can own, although skilled characters can perform magic without one. Advanced Harry Potter magic also includes non-verbal spellcasting, wandless magic, Apparition, Patronuses, and specialized charms. Wizarding World describes wandless magic as exceptionally difficult and says non-verbal spells demand intense concentration.

Riordan’s Egyptian system takes a different route. His official magic guide includes healing, elemental magic, charm-making, combat magic, avatars, staffs, wands, magical figures called shabti, and the forbidden Path of the Gods. Combat magicians can surround themselves with magical armor through avatars, giving the system a striking physical component. Then there is the divine layer. Magicians who follow the Path of the Gods can draw strength from deities such as Horus, while the highest form of that connection allows a mortal to become the god’s “eye,” combining human will with divine power.

Carter and Sadie’s connection to Egyptian gods makes that relationship central to the trilogy rather than a peripheral branch of spellcasting. That is why the headline has teeth. Harry Potter remains the more culturally dominant wizarding franchise, but The Kane Chronicles offers a magic system with more visible categories, physical tools, divine partnerships, and defined paths of specialization. Disney+ now has the ingredients for a wizard show that could look very different from Hogwarts if executives give it the green light.

Would you rather learn spells at Hogwarts or train as an Egyptian magician at Brooklyn House? Tell us in the comments, and follow FandomWire for more updates.