Harry Potter’s Remake Officially Includes a Hogwarts Character the Movies Wrongly Cut (But 1 Is Still Missing)

Harry Potter’s TV show will make some changes from the movies, including some characters cut from the big-screen adaptations. The remake is a chance to do things differently when it comes to Harry Potter, though it remains to be seen just how much HBO’s series will take it. It is striving for greater accuracy to the books, which is the reason to do it as a TV show in the first place, with fewer constraints on runtime. That’s evidenced by things like having a lot of the adult characters be younger than the films, and thus closer to the source material.

Conversely, the remake also adheres closely to the Harry Potter movies in some ways. This includes iconography, costume design (Nick Frost’s Hagrid looks almost identical to Robbie Coltrane’s version), and even at least one actor, as Warwick Davis will return to play Professor Filius Flitwick. It remains to be seen if he’ll be the only one to come back in some capacity, but the other new casting additions were at least all different and, most notably, included Richard Durden as Professor Cuthbert Binns.

Why Including Professor Binns Is Important For Harry Potter’s Remake

The Harry Potter movies binned off the History of Magic teacher, and in a way, that was an understandable choice. Time was limited, and you can at least see why spending it, not to mention budget, on a professor whose most notable attributes are a) being dead, and b) making his students fall asleep, may not have been too appealing. At the same time, though, Binns is an important part of Hogwarts. He adds to the lore, the overall feel of the place, and helps to make it a more lived-in and textured world.

One of the strongest aspects of the books is the time we get to spend in Hogwarts classes. They’re great for learning more about the Wizarding World, whether that’s different spells or (as Binns teaches) its history, as well as developing the characters and allowing them quieter moments to bond and actually act like the school kids they are. The movies drastically cut down on this in service of the main plot lines, but that meant losing, well, some of the magic of the series. By including Professor Binns, the remake is another step closer to recapturing that.

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It’s also another point in favor of the TV show doing things differently from the movies. The more it can deviate from what they did, the better. Not because they’re bad, but quite the opposite: they’re so beloved it’s silly to try to compete, and so putting its own stamp on things is the way to go. As mentioned, several reveals and updates haven’t suggested this, so the casting of Binns is a good move to further give the new adaptation its own identity.

Harry Potter’s Remake Still Needs To Cast Peeves

Professor Binns is a start, but there’s a much more important ghostly figure cut from the movies who needs to be included in the remake: Peeves. Much more so than the History of Magics professor, Peeves the Poltergeist is a character who (ironically) really helps make Hogwarts feel alive, like it’s had a storied past before Harry Potter and will continue to do so after him. He adds a lot of comic relief, too, and again contributes to those smaller moments that add up to so much.

Thankfully, the Harry Potter remake is expected to include Peeves, with showrunner Francesca Gardiner and director Mark Mylod previously teasing: “We’ll get to have some fun with Peeves in the corridors.” [via HarryPotter.com] However, while most of the Season 1 characters have been cast, there’s still no news on who will play the poltergeist in the TV show (based on The Philosopher’s Stone book, he should be appearing there). That’s certainly a challenge, if not least because the Harry Potter movies perfectly cast Peeves with the late, great Rik Mayall, and then cut his scenes from The Philosopher’s Stone.

Looking for another stalwart of British comedy would be the logical way to go for Peeves in the show. Names like Matt Berry and Greg Davies have been fancast, and understandably so, as they can capture the absurdity and OTT expressiveness of the character (the latter in particular would be near-perfect). Hopefully, whoever it is, it won’t be too long before we’re hearing about Peeves’ casting for the Harry Potter remake.

The Harry Potter TV show is currently filming, and is expected to be released on HBO and HBO Max in 2027.

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