The Max Original production of the first eight-episode TV series of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone will shoot at Leavesden in the Summer of next year.
Max will launch in the UK in 2026. Speaking at a Max presentation of upcoming originals that took place in London today, led by Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content, two of the executives on the upcoming Harry Potter show shared the approach that they are taking and some of the casting challenges.
The presentation included footage from upcoming Game of Thrones sequel which has been shooting in Belfast. The prequel is a change of tone for the epic series; the script has a more ironic, comedic tone.
The presentation showed locally originated scripted productions, some of which have worked well internationally. “I don’t want the notion to be that you can only do something internationally,” said Bloys. “In fact we are talking to programmers yesterday. They should be programming specifically for their markets..The only thing that’s going to travel internationally is a good show.”
Bloys was joined by The Harry Potter TV series show-runner and executive producer Francesca Gardiner, together with Mark Mylod, director and executive producer. The production is being made by an in-house team with a combination of UK and US behind the scenes talent.
As well as having four times the duration of each movie to develop the story of each book, the series will have a more realistic feel.
“We have the luxury of long-form storytelling,” said Mylod. “We have eight
hours to tell this first book so we can dig into depths and real crevices of Hogwarts and the similarities between the Muggle and Magic world, to dig into that with a beautiful attention to detail.”
Both Mylod and Gardiner are Potter fans and loved the movies, but with the TV “we get a bigger sandpit to play in and that really excites me as we get to really dig in, ” says Gardiner. “We get to explore Hogwarts, we will see things we haven’t seen, we’ll get to have some fun with Peeves in the corridor.”
“It really is an evolution, our approach is not to undermine what was done previously,” added Mylod. “We simply want to evolve.”
One advantage is that where the feature films were made before other books in the series were completed, this project can look ahead and plot accordingly.
“There are elements we don’t want to mess with such as the Great Hall, but other elements of Hogwarts we will expand on them,” adds Mylod. Referring to the original books, Mylod talked about how Hogwarts was first built in 900 AD “we want this basic idea that it was a real college, in the sense it would have evolved architecturally so there
will be elements of Georgian architecture and Tudor.”
For casting, “we follow the ethos of the films to source the cream of British talent, brilliant theatre actors,” said Mylod.
Casting the children has already proved a gargantuan task, 32 000 have sent in audition tapes in the hope of becoming Harry. There’s a team watching every single one and getting through between 500 and 1000 a day. They plan to have a workshop with shortlisted potential Harrys in January.
They will stick to the age of characters as chronicled by JK Rowling, which makes Snape 31 in the first book. “It’s a very different vibe,” says Gardiner. “The Dursleys are a lot younger. Lily and James [Harry’s parents] are only 21 when they die. It’s things like that which are going to make it seem fresh. And we can find the next generation of talent.”
Previous announcements by Max parent company Warner Bros. Discovery have indicated that the series could run across ten years and the first series is scheduled for a 2026 release.
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Pippa Considine
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