HBO has started production on its Harry Potter series. The first image from the set was released, allowing fans to see their first glimpse of the HBO Max Harry Potter reboot. The still, which features young actor Dominic McLaughlin as Potter, views him wearing the familiar Gryffindor school attire and round glasses, as well as the character's signature lightning bolt scar.
Filming is already underway at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden, England, the same location used for most of the original Harry Potter film series. The series adaption is being produced as a long-form series for HBO and Max, with the premiere date set for 2027.
The series will go a different way than the films, with one complete season for each of J.K. Rowling's seven books, allowing for much more detail and development compared to the films, that were two to three hours long a piece.
Francesca Gardiner, who worked on His Dark Materials and Killing Eve is the showrunner and writer. The series will be directed by Mark Mylod, who recently completed work on Succession.
New Cast, Familiar Characters, and a Bigger Story
The new Harry Potter series will be led by a different group of actors from the original films, as a band of younger actors take on some of the most recognizable roles in modern fiction.
The lead role will be Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter. He will join Arabella Stanton, a veteran of the West End, as Hermione Granger and Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley.
Some other major characters are also casted:
- Nick Frost as Hagrid
- Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape
- John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore
- Katherine Parkinson as Molly Weasley
- Janet McTeer as Professor McGonagall
- Anton Lesser as Ollivander
According to the showrunners, the series intends to stay true to the original books, with the possibility of introducing characters, subplots, and themes that were omitted from the previous films.
The author J.K. Rowling is a contributor to the series as an executive producer and is partnered with some of the key names of the original film series including producer David Heyman.
It has been reported that HBO is heavily invested in this project and it’s budget is expected to be comparable to some of HBO’s largest productions, such as House of the Dragon.
When the announcement of the series was made in 2023, it began generating both anticipation and discussion among fans; however, the production team is clear they wish to be respectful of the source material and introduce something new for a younger audience.
Unseen Characters, New Perspectives, and Cutting-Edge Production
The new series won’t just revisit the books, but it will also extend the books. There will be the opportunity to showcase many characters and magical moments that were left out.
Some of the additions are:
- Charlie Weasley, Ron’s older brother who is a dragon wrangler (mentioned, but never shown on film).
- Winky, the house elf introduced in Goblet of Fire, and who has a story that is closely tied to the larger plot.
- Peeves, the poltergeist who was cut from the films entirely, will appear in the series as well and has been cast.
- Founders’ lore will be expanded; all of the backstory to Hogwarts and the four houses will play a bigger part.
Sources also suggest that every season will include scenes from student perspectives in all four houses, not just Gryffindor. For instance, in season 1 they will include a Slytherin first-year student's perspective, making for a more balanced view of life in Hogwarts.
Technically, the series is working with the latest techniques in filmmaking. Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden utilizes LED volume stage technology similar to that used in The Mandalorian. This allows them to use immersive backdrops by filming in-camera/in-shots incorporating magical settings using visual effects, which melts the realism with visual effects for certain key scenes.
In another interesting measure, HBO has brought in a number of YA fiction writers to join the team working on the script and character development. Although not officially credited yet, their involvement is helping to shape the tone of the dialogue, the emotional arcs, and the way teens interact with each other - making the show more relevant for current viewers while staying true to the source material.
Technology-Driven Set Design Brings Magic to Life
One of the most significant advancements in HBO’s Harry Potter series is the practical use of LED volume stage technology, a filmmaking process that marries physical sets with large digital screens that provide high-resolution detail. This process gained notoriety through Disney’s The Mandalorian, but now many productions want to accomplish this hybrid form of visual storytelling.
According to insiders of Leavesden Studios, where the series is filming, the new Harry Potter adaptation will be able to take advantage of the technology to help form richer and more real life magical realities. Rather than placing actors on a green screen and laying all of the pressure on a digital backdrop, with LED stages, physical sets projected in real time to huge curved screens placed around the actors and the set. These environments shift and adjust in real-time with camera movement, realistic depth and space is created.
This method has a number of benefits:
- Less Reliance on CGI for Outside: Natural environments, outdoor settings (including Quidditch matches), and even the Forbidden Forest can now be imagined and captured in a more organic way. This creates a more believable and genuinely magical, in the context of visual effects, will never feel overly digital.
- Less Artificial Magic Effects: By using digital and physical components, docks, wayfaring beasts, and shifting environments can be visualized. This makes the visual effects blend together nicely with the lighting and real-world objects making magic feel more real and textural.
- More Interaction for Actors: Unlike scenes being filmed with green screens where actors must imagine their environment around them, with LED screens, actors have a full field of view and can see their environment to react to their immediate environment. This adds to the naturalness of performance capture, the eye-lines, and greater sense of immersion- all contributing to improving realism of a scene.
The choice to utilize this sort of technology represents a commitment more than just a visual spectacle, but also a less stylized, more emotionally grounded and visually cohesive version of the Wizarding World. It also represents a transition away from stylized CGI towards a more tactile, cinematic experience where the magic is happening on live action set, not in post.
Broader Hogwarts House Perspectives Aim to Balance the Narrative
A more creative—and quietly ambitious—aspect of HBO’s Harry Potter reboot is how the story will be expressed through the walls of Hogwarts. The series aims at a house-diverse perspective, reflecting the entirety of the student experience at the school of witchcraft and wizardry, as opposed to simply the experiences of Harry Potter and his classmates in Gryffindor from the original film franchise.
To this end, and according to sources close to the production, every season will include so-called "point-of-view chapters" from students in all four Hogwarts houses—Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. The hope is to convey multiple experiences and perspectives on student life at Hogwarts.
For example, Season 1 will contain scenes told from the perspective of a Slytherin first-year student at the same time as Harry Potter's perspective. These scenes are not changing the original story, but will provide additional context- and give a view of how students outside of Gryffindor considered those events, from the "Boy Who Lived" coming to Hogwarts to the tensions building in his first year.
This change is meant to address a common complaint about the original films regarding how the movies focused quite exclusively on Gryffindor and how they portrayed other houses (specifically Slytherin), often as a villainous entity or did not depict any other house at all. The books had more subtle and nuanced depictions of students in other houses, particularly Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, who we never really see in the films.
Initial reports indicate that the writing team has created a collection of original, house-based characters who will be recurring throughout the series. While they won’t replace the canon characters from the books, there will probably be a breadth of students that will provide a background depth to the Hogwarts events. The writing team is trying to make the school a real place, filled with a community, rather than just a background where Gryffindor has scripted interesting adventures.
This more holistic narrative delivery is expected to increase with each season, allowing a meaningful connection to a broader array of characters, and ultimately, provide a more complete look at the Wizarding World than has been experienced before.
Young Adult Authors Join Writers’ Room to Add Emotional Depth
HBO has quietly brought in a group of young adult fiction authors to inform the creative development of the new Harry Potter series in a way that has not yet been publicly announced. This is a group of authors who grew up reading the original books and consider themselves lifelong fans of the Wizarding World. This is especially important to consider since the authors' involvement will add an aspect to the show that considers adaptations to the developing world today.
While the authors have yet to be credited, contacts have indicated they have had significant input - particularly in developing characters and their relationships, as well as creating authentic dialogue. Using these authors' expertise is going to help bolster frankly describing and representing the teen experience, which is central to the Harry Potter story and canon but, was often portrayed in an overly simplified where well-formed emotional and interpersonal struggles were not developed in the film adaptations.
Their presence in the writers' room is allowing the show to do several things:
- Change the emotional tone while still retaining the charm or integrity of the original story, and perhaps open up the complicated realities of adolescence - fear, friendship, identity, belonging - that resonate more with today's teens.
- Give more agency to voices that have often stayed silent: characters from the books who had little screen time in the films, and perhaps help expand the emotional lives of supporting characters and relationships that were rushed or minimized in previous adaptations.
- Create a bridge between generations of fans so that an audience will feel connected to the storytelling but still resonate with the tone and texture that early readers loved.
Based on one above-the-line production source, the writers have been working hard to create an atmosphere at Hogwarts that feels more like the experience of school — where awkward friendships develop, emotional ups and downs are heightened, and growth happens in ways that are often not related to magical classes and dark wizards. Ideally, the show will create a blend of fantasy with emotional connections to the real world without losing touch with J.K. Rowling's established story arcs.
When we see YA authors being engaged, it also speaks to HBO's larger strategy to create a meaningful series, one with longevity and intensity of emotion that evolves alongside the adult audience over time, just like the original written series was capable of doing. The show will develop through seven seasons, so the creators are allowing for character arcs that will undergo growth in tone and complexity.
Traditional showrunners working with YA novelists might quietly become one of the reboot's biggest advantages — ensuring that it isn't merely the magic that compels fans to watch; but the people and relationships that lie at the heart of the story.
Interactive Experiences Being Developed Ahead of the Premiere
In addition to the show itself, Warner Bros. Discovery is quietly creating a series of interactive digital tie-in opportunities that will increase fan engagement well before the premier of the season.
Some of the early ideas in development include:
- A Sorting Hat AR experience that sorts fans into houses
- A Hogwarts student portal for fans to follow characters season by season
- Branching story experiences that allow fans to experience different house-specific narratives
The goals of these opportunities will be to extend the world of Harry Potter beyond the screen and create a new kind of connection for viewers.
With an expected release of 2027, HBO's Harry Potter series is shaping up to not be just a reboot. It will be a fuller, deeper, and more immersive experience of the Wizarding World - bringing back old fans and showing new fans even more to experience.
Image Source: People.com
