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HBO Max may soon be home to a Harry Potter television reboot.
According to Bloomberg, Warner Bros. Discovery is nearing a deal to produce a Harry Potterreboot series for HBO Max, which would be based on JK Rowling's original book series. Reportedly, each season of the prospective show would center around one of the seven Harry Potter books. Sources claim that the conversations between Warner Bros. Discovery and Rowling's team are in the early stages and no decisions have yet been made.
As talks surrounding the series continue, Warner Bros. Discovery is gearing up for a presentation on April 12 meant to give investors and the public a preview of the company's new streaming service, which will integrate Discovery+ and HBO Max, as well as new content. In March, the company's CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels spoke about the future of the Harry Potterfranchise following the successful release of the Hogwarts Legacy video game.
"[T]he fact that we are enjoying this massive success with the Hogwarts Legacy launch, 12 years after the last film came out, shows that there is so much opportunity, and we're only just starting to expand that," Wiedenfels said, suggesting that the company has other plans for the franchise. "Long story short, I think this one-company approach, great leadership in the individual business units, but coordinated franchise management is probably one of the biggest opportunities the company has."
Harry Potter Reboot Rumors
Rumors of a Harry Potter reboot began circulating in December 2022, though the speculation remained unconfirmed by Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO Max. However, the rumor stated that the reboot would be a completely new adaptation of the original Harry Potter book series. Around that same time, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav noted that the company would "have a real focus on franchises" moving forward, particularly Harry Potter and DC.
"We haven't had a Superman movie in 13 years. We haven’t done a Harry Potter movie in 15 years," he said in November 2022. "The DC movies and the Harry Potter movies provided a lot of the profits of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures over the last 25 years." Other reports suggested that Zaslav was looking to adapt the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child into a film, though this remains unconfirmed.
Harry Potter was first adapted to film in 2001 with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which launched a franchise consisting of eight movies in total, ending with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part II in 2011. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the first in a prequel film series, premiered in 2014. While the Fantastic Beast franchise was intended to span five movies, this is reportedly no longer the case after the poor box office performance of the third film, The Secrets of Dumbledore, in 2022.
Source: Bloomberg