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Should we believe in the return of the Harry Potter saga in a TV series adaptation?
The news came out in 2021. The TV series adaptation of the Harry Potter saga is finally taking shape and the presence of actor John Lithgow as a cast member has just been confirmed. Numéro dives into the rebirth of Hogwarts on the small screen.
by Jordan Bako.
A series adaptation of Harry Potter, 24 years after the first film
Harry Potter, an iconic literary saga of the 2000s, is about to make a transition from the big to the small screen. After several cult film adaptations, J.K Rowling’s bestsellers are being interpreted once again in the form of a show.
Right from the start, the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in theaters became a true emblem of pop culture. The biggest lucrative film of 2001 starred actors Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Emma Watson as Hermione, and Rupert Grint as Ron, who were just 12, 10 and 13 respectively at the time. Then, seven more feature films followed, tracing back the plot of J.K Rowling’s literary saga.
24 years after the release of the first opus, the snowy landscapes of Hogwarts haven’t lost any of their charm. The universe of Harry Potter has already been the topic of numerous adaptations, including a literary spin-off, adapted for the cinema with Fantastic Beasts (2016-2022), the video game Hogwarts Legacy, and a Harry Potter sequel written by J.K. Rowling in the form of a play…
A first-rate production team
With this stream of adaptations, it’s hard to see how the universe of the saga can be revamped once more… Indeed, this new series would consist of seven seasons, each one dedicated to one volume of Harry Potter. Produced by Warner Bros and HBO, the show is expected to be more faithful to the original books than the films were. The project would run for “ten consecutive years” as HBO’s CEO Casey Bloys stated in Deadline.
Warner Bros is thinking big in order to bring this large-scale project to fruition. Francesca Gardiner, who previously worked on the series Succession, will be the showrunner of the new series. Mark Mylod – Game of Thrones, The Menu, Succession – will direct some episodes. Finally, Laura Neal, the screenwriter behind some episodes of Killing Eve and Sex Education, will join the programme’s team of scriptwriters…
32,000 applicants to embody the new Harry, Hermione and Ron
As for the cast, a new series means new actors… The iconic gang formed by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint will not appear in the credits of this new adaptation. Castings have already begun in London to find the new Harry, Hermione and Ron. More than 32,000 children, aged between 9 and 11, have applied to embody the new Hogwarts trio…
On February 25th, the first name from the cast of this new series was officially confirmed. British actor John Lithgow, who starred in 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Crown, will embody Professor Dumbledore, Harry Potter’s larger-than-life mentor. Other actors are expected to join the cast of this new series, such as Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, Rachel Weisz as Minerva McGonagall, Brett Goldstein as Hagrid and Cillian Murphy as the dreadful Lord Voldemort…
An adaptation overshadowed by a transphobic controversy
The casting ideas only foreshadow a bright future for this reboot. However, this new adaptation is already controversial, even though the shooting of the series scheduled for the summer 2025 has not started yet. J.K Rowling will actually be involved in steering the show as the executive producer of the project. The American trade magazine Variety attended a press conference during which Casey Bloys confirmed that the writer was “very, very involved in the process of selecting the writer and the director”.
But, her presence in the credits is up for debate. Since 2017, J.K Rowling’s transphobic stances have spread all over social media. In several posts, the author adopted a ‘TERF’ rhetoric, which stands for “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist”. She repeatedly discredited the gender identity of transgender women, deeming them as “men in dresses” and not women in a tweet published in March 2018.
These comments earned her the wrath of the internet. Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson immediately disassociated themselves from J.K Rowling’s words, reiterating their support for transgender people. Moreover, the release of the video game Hogwarts Legacy in 2023 led to a strong response online, prompting a boycott of it because the author was receiving royalties thanks to that adaptation of Harry Potter. This brand-new series could well suffer from that controversy too.
The Harry Potter series, starring John Lithgow, is to be released on the streaming platform Max in 2026.
Traduction Emma Naroumbo Armaing.
