Harry Potter is set to return – to the small screen – in 2026.
Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav said: Discovery, in the company's fourth-quarter earnings call on Friday, said the first part of the Harry Potter TV series is aiming to hit the Max streaming service in 2026. The series is expected to span seven seasons, adapting each book in the author's best-selling fantasy series. JK Rowling.
“We have not been shy about our excitement about Harry Potter,” Zaslav told analysts, noting that the last film in the Warner Bros. film series was produced more than a dozen years ago. (“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” was released in 2011.)
Zaslav said he was in London a few weeks ago with HBO and Max chief content officer Casey Bloys and Channing Dungey, president of Warner Bros. Television, to meet with author JK Rowling about the show.
“We spent some real time with JK and her team,” Zaslav said on the call. “Both sides are thrilled to reignite this franchise. Our conversations have been great, and we couldn't be more excited about what's to come. We can't wait to share a decade of new stories with fans around the world on Max.”
No casting has been announced for the Harry Potter TV series yet, but WBTV said it will feature an all-new cast from the films. Daniel Radcliffe, who played the Boy-Who-Lived in all eight Warner Bros. films, said he was “definitely not looking for that in any way” in terms of appearing in the new show.
In an interview with diverse Last month, Dungey discussed the progress of the Harry Potter/Wizarding World series, which is set to be produced by Warner Bros. TV for Max. As announced last year, each season of the “decade-spanning series” will be based on one of the books in the series.
“We're in talks with a number of different writers to see who's going to be the one to lead this franchise for us,” Dungey said, adding that rumors speculating that casting is already underway are inaccurate. “The first step for us is to figure out who this product is going to be, and once we lock that down, we can start sourcing those [casting] Conversations. The hard part is the first two books, where the kids are the youngest, around 11 or 12.
Rowling — who in the past few years has made controversial statements about gender that are seen as transphobic — last year responded to Harry Potter fans who said they planned to boycott Max's TV adaptation over her involvement. “The activists I mentioned are trying to organize another boycott of my work, this time for the 'Harry Potter' TV show. Since advance warning, I took the precaution of putting in a large amount of champagne,” Rowling wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
