Harry Potter season 1’s rumored runtimes could be exactly what fans wanted

While we’ve been anxiously waiting for the latest Harry Potter series to drop on HBO, rumors of runtimes have been posted online, and honestly, it might be exactly what fans have been looking for.

On an X page for "Harry Potter HBO Brasil," the account posted rumored runtimes for each of the eight episodes in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which is the first season of the HBO series. It's a doozy!

With those runtimes, the new Harry Potter series will take about as long to watch as the full audiobook of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. That means it could be a very accurate book adaptation, as was the original intention behind the show.

Many people have theorized about how long each episode would be since it was announced there would only be eight episodes in the first season, but these runtimes, if they are true, speak for themselves. The alleged shortest one is still 48 minutes. That's more than enough time to fit plenty of action, and every episode of that is longer.

These runtimes also line up with what actor John Lithgow said in an interview with CBS Monday Morning (via ScreenRant):

"We are doing eight episodes to complete one entire book. The movies only had two hours. We have eight hours, so there's much, much more storytelling to do."

Lithgow, for those who don’t know, is playing Dumbledore in the series, so his word on how long these episodes are is a pretty good indicator that these alleged runtimes might be real. But what exactly will they include that we didn’t get to see in the movies? Well, here’s a list of what we might get to see.

Why these episodes are so long

While we all love the Harry Potter movies, many aspects were left out or changed from the Harry Potter books. And while Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the shortest book of the series, a lot of the plot was cut for the film.

For example, the book includes a logic puzzle that the kids had to solve, created by Professor Snape to stop someone from taking the stone. The book also includes a song the Sorting Hat sang that was completely omitted from the film, most likely to cut runtime.

That whole Forbidden Forest scene is also much longer in the books. Honestly, I could see them turning that into its own episode to expand Draco’s story, which wasn’t really expanded much in the movies, and, of course, including Neville Longbottom, who was also in the forest in the books.

Another thing that we don’t see as much in the movie is that Harry really loves the Mirror of Erised. In the books, he returns to it several times, while in the film, we only really see it once. The book does a much better job of showing Harry’s grief over losing his parents and how much he wishes they were there with him.  

Oh, and there's little Norbert, whom we only see a little bit in the first film but is featured much more in the book. So if you thought we were done with dragons from House of the Dragon, you would be wrong.

The biggest thing that we’re also going to see is just more of the characters on their own. The movies really had to focus on Harry, but the show can explore other characters' lives and dig into the issues they face, as well as their personal lives. That is something I am always down for.

One key problem remains for the Harry Potter series moving forward with runtimes like these: What will they do with later seasons as the books grow in size? Will we still have just eight episodes, or will HBO increase the episode count to better reflect the books' length?

HBO boss Casey Bloys has expressed doubt about their original ten-year plan for the series, but if production timelines fall behind, it could give the writing team more leeway to create better adaptations later on. That is, if HBO gives them the time. Either way, if these runtimes are real, I am so ready for this series to air.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone premieres on Dec. 25, 2026. You can watch all eight movies on HBO Max. 

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