Nearly 30 years after book readers around the world first fell in love with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone here in the States), J.K. Rowling’s beloved series of books is getting the TV treatment. Unlike all those Star Wars shows set in the world of George Lucas’ grand creation, this upcoming HBO series will take Rowling’s seven novels and adapt them into a decade-long experience, and it’ll be streaming for anyone with a Max subscription.
Announced during the official rollout of the Max streaming service back in 2023, the upcoming Harry Potter TV show will one day bring the full scope and scale of Rowling’s novels to viewers like never before. Here is everything we know about the Harry Potter TV show right now.
What Is The Harry Potter TV Show’s Premiere Date?
An exact premiere date has not yet been announced, but Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav revealed in a February 2024 earnings call (via Variety) that the show would land on Max at some point in 2026. A little more than a year later, in a March 2025 earnings call, the WB Discovery chief once again teased a 2026 debut, but didn’t provide any additional details.
Though the series was originally greenlit for Max, Deadline reported in June 2024 that Harry Potter would now be an HBO original series. How this impacts the rollout of the series has not yet been addressed, but we should know soon.
The Harry Potter TV Show Cast
Over the course of 10 years and eight movies (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was split into two theatrical releases), we watched as Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and the various other younger members of the Harry Potter cast grew from small children to young adults, becoming massive superstars in the process. But we won’t be seeing those actors in the upcoming TV adaptation, at least not in the roles that made them famous all those years ago.
In September 2024, Variety reported that HBO had an open casting call for the three leads – Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger – of the upcoming series. According to the outlet, the production is looking for children who are between the ages of 9 and 11 years old around April 2025 and who are residents of the U.K. or Ireland. The search is reportedly inclusive of all races, ethnicities, and gender identities. And while we don’t yet know who’ll be playing the young children we’ll presumably watch grow up over the next decade or so, Warner Bros. has revealed the following casting announcements:
- John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore
- Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall
- Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape
- Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid.
- Luke Thallon as Quirinus Quirrell
- Paul Whitehouse as Argus Filch
What Is The Harry Potter TV Show About
Another point of interest when it comes to the Harry Potter TV series is that the HBO series is planned to be released over the course of a decade, with stories from each of J.K. Rowling’s seven books being adapted. While it hasn’t yet been revealed if this will translate to 10 seasons released in consecutive years or seven seasons (one per book) with some seasons being broken up into parts, the plan for a decade-long series is exciting news and should have fans feeling very optimistic about its future.
The Harry Potter Teaser
On the same day that Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the Harry Potter TV show would bring the exciting adventures of “The Boy Who Lived” to a new generation, the company’s various social channels, like its official Twitter account, released a brief teaser trailer welcoming everyone to Hogwarts, be it the first time in years or first time entirely. Check it out below:
As you probably noticed by now, the teaser doesn’t offer any major details about the show, its cast, or how it will adapt the beloved fantasy books into a TV show, but the Great Hall’s floating candles and John Williams’ iconic score are more than enough to hold us over for now. And with production set to get underway soon (more on that below), it shouldn’t be long before we see a proper teaser or even full-on trailer.
The Harry Potter TV Show Will Be A ‘Faithful’ Adaptation Of J.K. Rowling’s Book Series
Though the Harry Potter movies did a tremendous job of bringing J.K. Rowling’s books to life on the big screen, there was a lot that was left out in the adaptations, most likely due to the length of the later novels. Well, that hopefully won't be a problem with the Harry Potter series as the TV format allows for a “faithful adaptation” of the source material, as Warner Bros. Discovery has announced. Following the big announcement, Rowling had this to say about the upcoming book-to-screen adaptation:
Max’s commitment to preserving the integrity of my books is important to me, and I'm looking forward to being part of this new adaptation which will allow for a degree of depth and detail only afforded by a long form television series.
Max has also announced that the new show will be “authentic to the original books” and will bring the popular property to new audiences around the world, as Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO, HBO & Max Content put it:
We are delighted to give audiences the opportunity to discover Hogwarts in a whole new way. Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon and it is clear there is such an enduring love and thirst for the Wizarding World. In partnership with Warner Bros. Television and J.K. Rowling, this new Max Original series will dive deep into each of the iconic books that fans have continued to enjoy for all of these years.
But this doesn’t mean that the eight Harry Potter movies will be yesterday’s news, as Warner Bros. holds the films “at the core of the franchise.”
Succession’s Francesca Gardiner Will Be The Harry Potter Showrunner
After months of speculation as to who will be writing and running the Harry Potter TV show, THR reported in June 2024 that Succession’s Francesca Gardiner had been announced as the series’ showrunner. That February, Deadline reported that Gardiner was one of three finalists for the highly coveted gig, with Tom Moran and Kathleen Jordan being the other candidates. At the time, the announcement was believed to come in June, which ended up being the case.
But Gardiner won’t be alone with the daunting task of turning seven iconic novels into a TV series, as Mark Mylod will also be working on the creative team and directing multiple episodes, though an exact number has not yet been determined. Mylod, who previously directed an episode of Game of Thrones, most recently directed THAT episode of The Last of Us Season 2, though it’s unlikely anything in the Harry Potter show comes close to the heartbreak and anguish of one particular scene.
J.K. Rowling Will Serve As An Executive Producer For The Harry Potter Series
J.K. Rowling won’t be writing the Harry Potter TV series, but the author responsible for the landmark fantasy franchise will be serving as an executive producer, as reported by Deadline. And while we don’t yet know how much Rowling will be involved with the day-to-day of the series, the outlet did report that she is expected to be involved with the decision-making process throughout its development and production.
This won’t be the first time Rowling has had a say in an adaptation of her popular book series as she helped Steve Kloves when the screenwriter was working on the scripts for the various Harry Potter movies. She later received producer credits for the final two entries in the series as well as the three Fantastic Beasts movies, which were based on characters she wrote.
The Show Will Have A Budget On The Same Scale As Game Of Thrones
Though Warner Bros. Discovery has yet to come out and explicitly provide an exact figure when it comes to the budget of the Harry Potter TV show, The Hollywood Reporter quoted Casey Bloys as saying the series will be on the same level as those of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, which have gone down as some of the most expensive shows of all time. According to THR, the first season of the GoT spinoff series cost HBO around $125 million after everything was said and done.
When asked about the cost of the upcoming series, Bloys expressed that the streamer was willing to do “whatever it takes to make a quality show.” Obviously, this is something the company is very much invested in seeing through.
Production On The Harry Potter TV Series Will Kick Off In Summer 2025
We don’t yet know how long the shoot will last (or how many books will be adapted during this first season), but we do know that production on the Harry Potter TV Series will kick off at some point this summer. According to Variety, the cameras will start rolling on the series at Leavesden Studios in England, the same shooting location used in the movies earlier this century.
With the summer months only weeks away at this point, expect to start hearing about the shoot and possibly see some behind-the-scenes photos in the very near future.
How To Watch The Harry Potter Movies
Considering we’re still at least a year until the Harry Potter TV show comes out on HBO and streaming on Max, there’s plenty of time to go back and watch the original eight movies. If you want to watch all the Harry Potter movies in order (at least those about “The Boy Who Lived”), now’s your golden opportunity, because they’re all streaming on Max at this moment (they are also available for anyone with a Peacock subscription). There are also multiple other ways to take them all in, as we point out below.
But again, there’s still plenty of time, so don’t feel like you have to rush through all seven years of Harry’s education and adventures and battles at Hogwarts!
- Stream The Harry Potter Collection on Max.
- Stream The Harry Potter Collection on Peacock.
- Rent/Buy The Harry Potter Collection on Amazon.
- Buy The Harry Potter 4K UHD Blu-Ray Collection on Amazon.
How To Read The Harry Potter Books
But if you really want to have some fun while you wait for the Harry Potter TV show, now’s a good time to go back and read J.K. Rowling’s beloved novels for the first time in a while or for the first time entirely. Whether you want to revisit these classic stories, find out what all the fuss was about in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, or start making a list of scenes left out of the movies you want to see in the series, these seven incredible novels will do the trick.
Paperback collections are available on Amazon (or your local library), as are the hardcover editions and those beautifully crafted illustrated versions that have been coming out over the past decade.
- Buy The Harry Potter Seven-Book Paperback Collection on Amazon.
- Buy The Harry Potter Seven-Book Hardcover Collection on Amazon.
With the cast filling out, production gearing up to take off, and the anticipation building to a possible 2026 release date for the Harry Potter TV show, expect to hear a lot more about what is possibly the most eagerly awaited upcoming HBO show in years, if not decades.
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