The once unstoppable Harry Potter franchise has been in a bit of a rocky road for the past several years. What was once a much-loved book and film franchise has had its brand impacted by series creator J.K. Rowling’s consistent use of her platform to attack trans people, and the poor performance of the most recent Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film. The one bright spot, has been the success of the Harry Potter game Hogwart's Legacy, which bucked the aforementioned trends to make well over $1 billion for Warner Bros., with an estimated 24 million copies of the game sold as of early 2024.

It's that landscape that is learning Warner Bros. to push forward with a live-action Harry Potter TV series.

During the Decmber 23, 2024 Warner Bros. Discovery earnings call, CEO David Zaslav said that the first season of this previously announced Harry Potter show is expected to stream on Max sometime in 2026. That is a long lead-in time for the show, but that is probably because there haven’t been any announcements for the creative team behind the show. No showrunner or head writers have been named yet, which makes this feel like a very preliminary announcement to assure everyone that Warner Bros. is still definitely going ahead with the series.

The only person that we know Warner Bros. is consulting about the Harry Potter show is J.K. Rowling herself. During the same call, Zaslav said that he and other top executives “spent some real time with J.K. and her team,” while they were in London a few weeks ago. “We can’t wait to share a decade of new stories with fans around the world on Max.”

Zaslav noted that its been 14 years since the last Harry Potter movie, which although technically true does overlook the Fantastic Beasts franchise - which he seems to keen to do.

No cast has been announced for the show, but we do know that the upcoming Harry Potter series is expected to run for seven seasons, each one covering the events of one of the books. Whether the brand’s image will recover between now and the proposed 2026 release date will probably have a big impact on how well the Harry Potter series performs on Max.

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