Chris Columbus, who directed the first two installments of the Harry Potter film franchise, has voiced his support for HBO’s upcoming TV reboot. In an interview with People, the filmmaker called the project “a spectacular idea” since it won’t be weighed down by the same time restrictions movies are. Comparing the TV show to his Wizarding World endeavors, Columbus said, “Our film was two hours and 40 minutes, and the second one was almost as long.” While Columbus and his team wanted to cover as much of J.K. Rowling’s novels as they could, they still had to work within the confines of a film’s running time.
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He believes that TV will be a great space to tell the classic Harry Potter story. “The fact that they have the leisure of [multiple] episodes for each book, I think that’s fantastic,” Columbus said. “You can get all the stuff in the series that we didn’t have an opportunity to do … all these great scenes that we just couldn’t put in the films.”
The Harry Potter TV show, slated to premiere on HBO in 2026, has been described as a “faithful adaptation” of the book series. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO and president of global streaming mentioned the reboot will be a “10-year journey” for the company, highlighting its significance to the studio’s future plans. Cameras will start rolling on the Harry Potter show at some point this summer, with production taking place in the United Kingdom.
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As the series progresses towards its filming start date, HBO is attempting to put together the show’s cast. While nothing is official, reports have indicated Colin Farrell is being eyed for Dumbledore, and Brett Goldstein is in the running for Hagrid. Paapa Essiedu has reportedly been offered the role of Professor Snape. Last year, HBO held an open casting call to find actors to play Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
The Harry Potter films were wildly successful, ranking among the highest-grossing titles of their era and earning positive reviews. Given how prominent the movies still are today, a reboot of any kind sounds like a fruitless proposition on paper. However, Columbus is correct in his assessment. While there are business reasons for moving forward with a Harry Potter reboot (Warner Bros. Discovery doesn’t want a lucrative IP to sit on ice for too long), utilizing a different medium will help differentiate it from what came before from an artistic perspective. The cloud of the Harry Potter movies might always hang over the show, but the series will at least be able to take advantage of its format by going into greater detail than its big-screen counterparts. Already, it’s been confirmed that Peeves the poltergeist — absent from the films — will appear on the show.
There’s no shortage of great moments from the Harry Potter books that would be ideal to explore on the TV show, and it should be exciting to finally see them realized on-screen. The franchise’s extensive world-building is a main reason why it resonated so much with audiences, so presenting a more comprehensive depiction of the Wizarding World sounds like an easy recipe for success. Of course, simply having these “great scenes” Columbus references in the script won’t be enough to make the show land with fans. The onus will be on the showrunners to nail their casting decisions; watching the right actors bring sequences cut from the movies will really help elevate the TV show.
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