Harry Potter fans range from those who read the books obsessively in third grade to those who exclusively read fanfiction about the Marauders. Still, all of them have probably heard about the new TV series that will be succeeding the original movies almost 15 years later. The show will be on HBO Max, and it was finally announced in July 2025 that it has since started filming.
The show has gained traction from inside the extensive and long-lived fandom, as well as from adjacent viewers of the show’s media. However, since the release of new cast members, interviews with the original director, and updates of stage costumes and design, many are starting to wonder if this series will be critically or even aesthetically successful.
This was shocking news from the start, because even though the eight Harry Potter movies were far from perfect and not entirely faithful to the books, they’re still praised for their storytelling and aesthetics. Personally, binging these movies during the holiday season is a must.
The producers have been very outspoken about the fact that this series will be more devoted to the books and their storylines, creating a season for each book of the series. While this is a hopeful statement, many recent adaptations like Percy Jackson and the Olympians have promised faithful adaptations and then fallen short in the eyes of viewers.
Criticism of the Cast
Several of the cast members for the new series have been released since the initial announcement of the show, and some fans are not happy. The criticism surrounding the TV series is divided into two areas: first, anger has been surfacing online concerning the racebending of previous characters, including Severus Snape and Hermione Granger; second, reprisals and identical castings have become disliked. However, there’s major hypocrisy among the viewers, and there’s also tireless redundancy within the show itself.
Severus Snape and Hermione Granger, who were both played by Caucasian actors in the movies, have been cast in 2025 by Paapa Essiedu and Arabella Stanton. These decisions have faced backlash because of their appearance, although neither character’s race was specified in the original books.
The question of whether race has to do with a character’s portrayal is once again introduced into visual media. Although this criticism is significant, it’s one of the only visual or directorial changes made so far; perhaps a more racially diverse cast will introduce a new perspective for the upcoming show.
In contrast, there’s also been criticism of the wide variety of the cast, which ranges from well-known comic actors to first-time child actors, and actors reprising their roles from the original movies. Currently, the only character we know is reprising their role is Warwick Davis as Filius Flitwick, but the actor who was chosen for Hagrid was met confused and angry Twitter replies because he looked too similar to the original actor.
The Show’s Similarities to the Movies
It seems like the production team doesn’t exactly know the route they want to take. They might be afraid to change too much, but without doing so, the show becomes a useless regurgitation of the popular 2000s movies. Chris Columbus, the director of the first and second Harry Potter movies, even spoke about his feelings towards the show.
Columbus spoke on the new series after the casting of Hagrid, and pictures of him in costume were released to the public. On a podcast called The Rest Is Entertainment, Columbus stated that he had previously thought that the show might take a different angle, but after seeing the same costume that he had made for Hagrid, he expressed his disinterest and disappointment that it was going to “be more of the same.”
It was also announced that the new series would also use the same filming location as the original movies, and more people are now joining in this disappointment and asking why an iconic movie and book series from our childhood is being rebooted.
Many even hoped that when the show was announced, it would be a different group of characters, such as the Hogwarts founders, Marauders-era characters, or children of the main trio, but they were sadly proven wrong. Unfortunately, fans are still going to have to wait for canon storylines regarding the past and future of Hogwarts — it’s a shame that we’re subjected to the same story in an adaptation format for the second time in a row.
As an avid TV watcher and annoying movie-seat critic, I’m excited, if not trepidatious, to see where the producers and directors take this show. The many inconsistencies in tone, as well as the similarities to the original, might make it a boring watch, but we won’t know until it’s brought to our screens in 2027.
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