Just how big is HBO’s new Harry Potter series going to be? An HBO exec is making a bold prediction about its potential impact.
There’s no denying that HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series is highly anticipated. Even with the movie's established hits, the series promises to delve deeper into J.K. Rowling’s iconic series and expand on the adventures.
Speaking to Variety, Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming chief JB Perrette is starting up the hype with the bold claim that this show will be bigger than any series of the 2020s!
“The scope of the production, the detail, meticulousness of what they’re going through and what they’ve built takes theatrical to just a whole different level," Perrette said. "And so when you think of the love of that franchise and what you can do in a series — can go deeper, and tell more of the story, can tell more of the pieces that you didn’t get to capture in a two hour movie – Casey [Bloys, HBO Max boss] doesn’t like it when I say this, but I’m gonna say it anyway. I really think this is the streaming event of the decade.”
It’s hard to argue with Perrette, given the series has one of the biggest built-in audiences in the world. As great as the movies were, Potter fans have had mild complaints about how much they had to cut out from the books for the run time and not fleshing out all of the Wizarding World. The new series offers not just the time to be more faithful to the books but a chance at a wider audience than the films.
Can the Harry Potter show truly be the biggest show ever?
Perette kept up the hype, pointing out that the launch of HBO Max in Europe only expands on the network’s reach and will lead to a far larger audience.
“We as a team have been waiting for so long to be able to deliver this experience to consumers in a market as big and important as the U.K., for example, and then you book end — as we get out of ‘26 and going to ‘27 — with what will be certainly the biggest streaming event in the history of HBO Max, and arguably, I think, possibly in streaming period, there’s no other series that can be anywhere close to that.”
It’s true that the streaming audience is likely larger than the average moviegoing audience these days — though there are concerns about the cost of HBO Max, which may keep subscribers from signing on in the numbers of Netflix or even Prime Video (and that’s without streaming prices rising every year).
However, expanding to the U.K., where the Harry Potter books have always been far more popular than in the U.S., makes it hard to argue with this stance. The books have been translated into every part of the world, so the fanbase will want to tune in to see how the series captures the story. With HBO now having a footprint in the home country of Harry Potter, the idea of them hitting huge numbers for the show’s first season isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Of course, having a strong first season is one thing; sustaining it over six or seven more seasons is something else. HBO sure learned that with Game of Thrones. The launch of the Harry Potter series should be epic, but we have to wait to see if it lives up to HBO’s very lofty expectations.