Harry Potter TV series could soon be underway: reports

Grab your wands and head to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters – a very unexpected return to Hogwarts is reportedly close to being locked in.

The Harry Potter movie franchise is set to be adapted into a television series, according to a new report.

Bloomberg, which recently broke the news of negotiations to bring J.K Rowling’s much-loved stories to the small screen, reports that Warner Bros. Discovery is currently looking to close the deal to produce it and release the series under its streaming service, HBO Max.

The publication also reports that the TV version would be directly based on the books, rather than an in-universe spin-off, such as the Fantastic Beasts series.

According to Variety, sources have revealed that conversations remain in a “preliminary state”.

Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint in the third film in the series: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Reports first surfaced of a potential Harry Potter TV series in January 2021, prior to Discovery’s 2022 acquisition of WarnerMedia.

The idea has the support of at least one of the franchise’s original film stars: just a couple of months ago, Rupert Grint – best known as Ron Weasley – said he’d “love” to see Harry Potter brought back to life as “a TV show”.

“I think it would really work,” he told GQ magazine UK in January.

The TV series would focus on Rowling’s original books.

The latest wizarding world update follows news earlier this year that Warner Bros. Studios is also currently developing the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child stage show – which premiered in 2016 in London’s West End and has also been in Melbourne since 2019 – into a new franchise.

“Warner Bros are currently looking at how to bring The Cursed Child to the big screen,” a source told The Sun. “It has been in their sights since the play proved to be so popular in the West End.

“It went onto the back burner for a while because there was so much work going on with the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

“A line has been temporarily drawn on that for now, especially given its lacklustre performance, so it’s full steam ahead when it comes to developing The Cursed Child.

“At the moment it is in very formative stages and they are discussing the next steps to move it forward. The dream would be to have major stars returning, including Daniel Radcliffe, but that is still incredibly far off.

“Everyone who works within the Harry world wants Daniel to be back, but first they have to iron out the plan for how many films it will be, a reworked script and budgets.

“The hope at the moment is that The Cursed Child could be made into two films – both which would pack as much punch, if not more, than the stage show.”

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play based on an original story written by Harry Potter authorJ.K. Rowling.

The story takes place almost two decades after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and focuses on Harry’s son Albus Severus Potter, who is starting his first year at Hogwarts.