This summer, HBO will film the first season of a new Harry Potter TV show, based on the books by J.K. Rowling. The show aims to adapt all seven books, and to stay more faithful to them than the Harry Potter movies did.
Putting aside the question of whether this show is needed, what with the movies being pretty faithful already and very popular to this day, this show is going to be a big deal. The franchise remains beloved by millions of people around the world, and HBO is pouring tons of money into the series to make sure it's a success. Just recently, we've gotten looks at some of the sets HBO's parent company Warner Bros. Discovery is building at Leavesden Studios in England. In the Harry Potter movies, a house in the town of Bracknell doubled for Harry's childhood home at 4 Privet Drive. For the new show, WBD is building a whole set:
And that's just the start. According to The Sun, WBD is building a whole complex that will include not only sets, but a school for the hundreds of young actors who will play students at Hogwarts, a facility needed to house the animals in the show (if you've read the Harry Potter books, you know that the kids keep cats, rats, owls, and other animals as pets), and more. All told, this construction could run WBD as much as £1 billion, or around $1.34 billion.
“Warner Bros are making a huge commitment to the new TV show, looking at making multiple, lengthy series over the next decade," an insider told The Sun. "[T]hey see pumping a huge amount of cash in upfront to construct this infrastructure as a worthwhile investment which they’ll eventually get a return on...What they’ll have is a small metropolis which will not only provide the backdrop for the show but all the facilities the huge cast and crew need, too.”
According to Express, this means that the Harry Potter series could cost as much as £75 million, or $100 million, per episode, which would easily make it the most expensive TV series in history. Express also talked to "a senior Hollywood production source" who seemed breathless about how huge the show was going to be. “There’s no question Harry Potter will become the biggest TV show the world has ever seen – as well as providing an enormous windfall for the UK," they said.
The Harry Potter show will only have six episodes per season?
That said, this information is still very new, and there are some conflicting reports. For example, The Sun's source said that WBD is hoping to make "multiple, lengthy series" for the show. But Express says that each of the seasons will run for only six episodes each.
Episode counts for seasons of TV have been dropping in recent years, especially at HBO. The first season of House of the Dragon ran for 10 episodes but the second had only eight. The first season of The Last of Us had nine episodes but the second, which is running right now, only has seven. Personally, I don't understand this; I'd think studios would want to produce lengthier seasons to keep people engaged longer, especially when the waits between seasons can take so much time. But it is the trend, so I guess it's possible that seasons of the new Harry Potter show could only run for six episodes apiece.
But I hope not. We'll find out for sure when the new Harry Potter show airs on HBO and HBO Max, probably sometime in 2026 or maybe early 2027; the dates aren't set yet. Neither is the cast; while we know who's playing important roles like Hagrid and Professor Dumbledore, we have yet to learn who will be playing lead characters like Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter himself. But the way things are ramping up, I bet we'll know soon.
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