With promotions in full swing for NBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reggie Jenkins, premiering February 23, 2026, Daniel Radcliffe is back in the headlines. But sustained spotlight is hardly new territory for the actor who became a household name as the face of the Harry Potter franchise. From a $9-billion-plus box office legacy to winning a Tony Award for his performance in Merrily We Roll Along, Radcliffe has crafted a career that extends far beyond childhood stardom.

However, Radcliffe, it seems, can never drift far from the spotlight. Just as one project wraps its cycle, another headline brings him roaring back. Now, amid fresh promotions, a forgotten teenage pitch has resurfaced.

Before giving Potterheads their forever Harry, Daniel Radcliffe was a stage-struck teen sharpening his craft in school productions and television dramas like David Copperfield. As his career rocketed, the scripts piled up, though not all of them were good ideas. Recently, he has pulled back the curtain on the most unhinged pitch he heard as a teenager: a remake of the The Wizard of Oz, which he rejected on the spot in a conversation on Hot Ones.

  During a recent appearance on Hot Ones, Radcliffe recalled realizing that it was a bad idea. The proposal would have reunited the Harry Potter trio in radically reimagined roles, with Radcliffe cast as a karate-fighting Cowardly Lion. Even as a teenager, he said, he could tell the project was something that should never be made.  

"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," said Daniel Radcliffe.

One of the glaring reasons why Daniel Radcliffe knew at that young age to not mess with The Wizard of Oz was not because he knew that loyal fans of the IP would come from every corner of the world, but because he could simply not imagine a Cowardly Lion that knew how to do karate, which was a key component of the now rejected script, as per his revelation on the Hot Ones.

While it is not clear whether Emma Watson and Rupert Grint also backed out for similar reasons, but ultimately the Harry Potter trio remained the Harry Potter trio and never translated into an Oz trio with a karate-kicking Cowardly Lion.

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Yet while that pitch fizzled, the Harry Potter series wave was conjuring unstoppable box-office magic. When Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone cast its spell in 2001, he quickly became one of the franchise’s top earners. However, beyond Hogwarts, Daniel Radcliffe refused to be pigeonholed, diving into a string of daring and diverse film choices.

Daniel Radcliffe may have skipped the bizarre Oz script as per his revelation on the Hot Ones, he clearly had an eye for hits. While enchanting childhoods with eight Harry Potter films from 2001 to 2011, with the first ever Harry Potter film, still remaining binge worthy, he also jumped into standout projects like The Woman in Black (2012), Ki-- Your Darlings (2013), Swiss Army Man (2016), Now You See Me 2 (2016), Escape from Pretoria (2020), and The Lost City (2022). Beyond the big screen, he has lit up the stage and TV, owning a Tony Award for Merrily We Roll Along and memorable roles in Miracle Workers. 

At the helm of blockbuster hits, the bizarre The Wizard of Oz pitch proves even Hollywood giants like Daniel Radcliffe are not immune to its wildest ideas. Yet, by stepping through that chaos, he paved the way for the iconic characters Potterheads will never forget. 

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What do you think about Daniel Radcliffe skipping the bizarre The Wizard of Oz pitch? Let us know in the comments below.