Warner Bros. Discovery is aiming to release its long-gestating Harry Potter series on Max in 2026.
CEO David Zaslav confirmed the news during the company’s Q4 earnings call on Friday. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series has been in development since 2021, with the first official word on it coming almost a year ago. The series is expected to come to Crave in Canada given the Bell-owned service’s licensing rights to Warner Bros. and HBO content.
Warner Bros. Discovery says the series will spend one full season on each of the seven Harry Potter novels and be released over a decade. Therefore, it won’t have any connection to the Daniel Radcliffe big-screen adaptations. (Radcliffe, for his part, has said he isn’t planning to make any sort of appearance in the series.)
During the call, Zaslav didn’t confirm any other details about the show, but he did note that company leadership recently met with Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling to discuss the show. Rowling, who has come under fire in recent years for her repeated transphobic comments, is expected to be closely involved with the series as both an executive producer and consultant.
For now, though, the series is still very much in the early stages. Speaking to Variety last month, Warner Bros. Television chairperson Channing Dungey said the company is still talking with writers to determine a showrunner for the series. She also noted that they’ll need to find lead actors who are “around 11 or 12” who can age alongside the characters as the series progresses.
Zaslav — an executive who thinks it’s courageous to show contempt for art by repeatedly shelving near-completed films for tax credits — has often touted the company’s desire to pursue more Harry Potter content. In the earnings call, he said the last Potter film was “made more than a dozen years ago,” presumably referring to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II.
However, while that was the last Potter-led film in Rowling’s ‘Wizarding World,’ there were three Fantastic Beasts spin-offs released between 2016 and 2022. These films received mixed reviews and saw diminishing returns at the box office, leading the company to scrap plans for two more installments.
Meanwhile, last year’s Hogwarts Legacy video game, which was set decades before the main Harry Potter series, was the best-selling game of 2023.
Image credit: Warner Bros.
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
