The Harry Potter movies are no longer available on any streaming service
By Ariba Bhuvad
The Harry Potter films have vanished from streaming services. Where they’d go? At least all the Lord of the Rings movies are now in one place.
The Harry Potter movies have been jumping between streaming platforms for the last few months, and now it appears that they are no longer available to watch on any streaming service. If you own the DVDs or the Blu-rays, you’re probably feeling pretty smart right about now.
As of November 1, all eight Harry Potter films were officially taken off of NBC Universal’s streaming platform, Peacock. Prior to that, they were on HBO Max for a brief amount of time. Sigh, can’t we just find them a home and keep them there? The holidays are coming up!
The reason for all uncertainly is because of contracts in existence before these streaming services were launched. Currently, NBCUniversal has the streaming rights to the Harry Potter films through 2021, hence the shift to Peacock. However, the deals made to secure those rights required that the films be available exclusively on NBCUniversal’s networks USA and SyFy for a while.
Does this mean that the movies are off of streaming services for good? It’s not likely; a lot of these contracts were made before the streaming revolution really kicked into high gear, and when the deals are negotiated, the Potter movies will land on some streaming platform, even if we’re not sure which one yet. The safest bet is that they’ll come back to Peacock at some point between now and the end of 2021.
After that, Warner Bros. will likely to everything it can to bring the movies back to HBO Max and keep them there. Unfortunately, it’ll be a back and forth until this happens, so we’ll have to opt for watching the movies on cable networks…or actually buying them on DVD/Blu-Ray.
But if you’re looking for a fantasy holiday binge, there’s some good news: all three Lord of the Rings movies and all three Hobbit movies are now available on HBO Max, much to the delight of Ian McKellen (Gandalf):
Hurrah! now I can watch them again but in which order? Hobbit first. Tolkien wrote it first. https://t.co/3NC6o2zgLH
— Ian McKellen (@IanMcKellen) November 2, 2020
THE HOBBIT AND LOTR, all six on HBO Max now. pic.twitter.com/oJOG6cwTbw
Hurrah indeed!
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