We won’t be able to watch it until 2027, but HBO has confirmed production for the Harry Potter TV show is officially underway. It’ll be available on HBO and HBO Max, respectively, in the US – though where it will be available to stream globally is yet to be confirmed.
We might not know what Hogwarts is going to look like in 2025, but we do know that the cast is absolutely stacked. Paapa Essiedu (Snape), John Lithgow (Dumbledore), Nick Frost (Hagrid), Janet McTeer (McGonagall) and Paul Whitehouse (Filch) lead the names we’ll recognise alongside a trio of newcomers Dominic McLaughlin (Harry), Alastair Stout (Ron) and Arabella Stanton (Hermione).
The original Harry Potter movies are never going to be forgotten, but it’s fair to say that the new TV show will likely become one of the most-watched programmes of 2027. If the first-look at one lead character is anything to go by, fans are going to be thrilled with what’s to come.
Harry Potter looks like a young Daniel Radcliffe as HBO TV show starts filming
Fresh from their first days on set, McLaughlin looks as though Daniel Radcliffe’s 11-year-old self has jumped forward in time from The Philosopher’s Stone to start filming for HBO. From what we can already see, we’ve got exactly the same level of detail as the Harry Potter movies, but that shouldn’t be a surprise given the budget for the entire series is allegedly between $2 billion and $8 billion.
It’s a hefty price tag, but if we’re to follow the filming timeline of the movies, our cast is locked into this project for at least a decade. This also means McLaughlin and his peers are about to grow up in front of our eyes, so we’re literally witnessing history here by seeing him at the very beginning.
As for everyone else, it remains to be seen how faithful the TV show will stay to the movies or the novel series it’s based on. Author J.K. Rowling is on board as an executive producer, having previously commented on X/Twitter that she “couldn’t be happier” with the casting choices for our leading trio. If writer Francesca Gardiner’s previous projects are anything to go by – namely the most recent adaptation of the His Dark Materials trilogy – we might be getting something as dark as Deathly Hallows from the very start.
The release window of 2027 is also newly confirmed, though we don’t have an exact release date at the time of writing.
