JK Rowling visited the set of the new “Harry Potter” series for the first time and checked out the production progress. Find out how she’s involved and what Daniel Radcliffe says about the series.
JK Rowling paid her first visit to the set of the new “Harry Potter” series.
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As “Deadline” reported, the author of the novel inspected the progress of the series adaptation. Rowling herself is an executive producer behind the scenes and was involved in the script and casting decisions. Rowling is criticized on social networks as being transphobic – her visit to the set is said to have been without incident.
Apparently she would still not fire actors with different perspectives from the planned “Harry Potter” series. More specifically, it was about Paapa Essiedu in the past. This now plays Severus Snape. After the British Supreme Court recently voted on and restricted the rights of trans women, Essiedu positioned herself alongside 400 other actors alongside trans people. Like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them lead actor Eddie Redmayne, he signed a petition calling on the entertainment industry to protect the trans community. And this despite the fact that “Harry Potter” creator JK Rowling herself has a different opinion.
So now your set visit to the series. In June 2025, Rowling had already emphasized the good cooperation with the series team. She said, according to Deadline, that she “worked closely with the extremely talented writers” on the series, not least showrunner Francesca Gardiner. “I’ve read the first two episodes of HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series and they are SO, SO, SO GOOD,” she said at the time.
“Maintaining the integrity of my books”
When the series was first announced in 2023, the 60-year-old praised HBO’s “commitment to maintaining the integrity of my books.” “I’m excited to be a part of this new adaptation, which allows for a level of depth and detail that only a long-running television series can provide.”
Daniel Radcliffe wrote a letter to his successor
Rowling is not the only one of the old Harry Potter guard who is tackling the new franchise. Daniel Radcliffe recently said on “Good Morning America” that he wrote new “Harry Potter” star Dominic McLaughlin a letter and wished him well on set.
“I wouldn’t say that everyone who is going to play Harry needs to contact me, but I know a few people who are working on the production. I wrote to Dominic and sent him a letter and he sent me back a very nice reply,” Radcliffe said.
“I hope you have a great time, an even better time than I did”
“I don’t want to be a ghost in these kids’ lives, I just wanted to write to him to say, I hope you have a great time, an even better time than I had – I had a great time, but I hope you have an even better time,” the 36-year-old continued. “And I do too, I see these pictures of him and the other kids and I just want to hug them. They look so young. I look at them and think, It’s crazy that I did that at that age. But it’s also incredibly sweet and I hope they have a great time.”
New HBO series expected to start in 2027
Warner is currently reissuing “Harry Potter” as an HBO series and is filming an adaptation that will once again film all seven fantasy books with a new cast. Each season of the new series will be based on one volume of JK Rowling’s original. According to “Moviepilot”, the production should be completed within a decade – not least so that the new young stars don’t age too quickly.
Filming started in the summer of 2025. A filming time of 10 to 11 months is scheduled for each season, as “Moviepilot” reported. Although fans had initially hoped for a 2026 launch, the launch date was ultimately set for 2027. A date beyond the year has not yet been specified.
The “Harry Potter” series will appear in the USA on HBO and the streaming service HBO Max. Whether this will mean a German evaluation on Sky/WOW or another broadcaster, as is usual with other HBO series such as “Game of Thrones” – or whether the streamer will be launched in Germany itself by 2027 – remains to be seen.
Expensive production
Harry Potter is played by Dominic McLaughlin, Hermione Granger by Arabella Stanton and Ron Weasley by Alastair Stout. Series production will not be cheap: a “mini city” near the Warner set alone, which was built just for the series, cost over 1.1 billion euros, as “Moviepilot” reported. In addition to a school for the young cast, a new Privet Drive 4 is also to be built there.