3 reasons why it's too soon for a Harry Potter TV series

Last year, we learned there's a new Harry Potter TV series in the works at Warner Bros. The series, which is currently casting its lead roles for Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, is expected to premiere on HBO and MAX in 2026.

According to Variety, Francesca Gardiner is the new showrunner and executive producer for the Harry Potter TV series. Gardiner is best known for work on Succession, His Dark Materials, and Killing Eve.

By the time the new series premieres, the Harry Potter movies will be, at most, 25 years old. That's from the date of the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The Harry Potter books will be less than 30 years old by the time the TV series premieres. Doesn't it feel just too soon for a Harry Potter TV series?

While the series is in great hands with Gardiner and executive producer Mark Mylod, who will also direct, my worry is that fans aren't ready for another Harry Potter TV series. Will it just be white noise or worse in already ultra-competitive TV landscape.

We shared three reasons it's too soon for a Harry Potter TV series!

The Harry Potter movies are, largely, good

For the most part, the Harry Potter movies, as a franchise, are good! There are better adaptations, but you rarely see a movie series based on a book series with Rotten Tomatoes scores as high as the Harry Potter movies.

More importantly, the Harry Potter movies do a very good job of capturing the world and story of the Harry Potter books. There are subtle changes in the first three movies, but they are very, very close adaptations. The creative teams had to make some big choices because the last five movies cover so much ground. They had to cut important storylines.

Sure, there are flaws in the Harry Potter movies. There are things, especially later in the movies, that are not particularly well done. Splitting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into two movies did not work for me. I don't know how they should have done it, but Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 is one of the weakest movies of the series.

What if the show is bad? It's going to have to clear an extremely high bar to even feel necessary. That's a huge reason why they should leave the Harry Potter story from the books alone for at least a little while longer.

Overall, the Harry Potter movies are good and enjoyable. They do a good job telling the story, and that's enough for right now.

PLUS, DANIEL RADCLIFFE ISN'T EVEN GOING TO BE 40 YEARS OLD BY THE TIME THE SHOW PREMIERES! I feel like that matters.

The Harry Potter movies are still super popular

The Harry Potter movies moved to Peacock from MAX in August and back in September. Instantly, the movies became some of the top movies on each streaming service when they were added. It shows that there's still so much interest in the Harry Potter movies.

If the Harry Potter TV series is going to tell the same story as the Harry Potter movies, which is an accurate adaptation of the books, do we need a TV series? Fans have access to these movies every day.

The obvious rebuttal to this argument is that people love the movies and they will tune in to watch a new Harry Potter TV series. That's probably true, but I would rather have MAX and Warners Bros. bringing new stories to life instead of literally one of the most popular stories of all time.

The interest in Harry Potter is still there, but the idea feels stale.

There are more exciting stories from the Wizarding World that we haven't seen yet

This is the most important point, in my opinion. We've already done this story fairly recently. Yes, it's been 25 years since the first movie started filming, but the eighth and final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 premiered in 2011. It'll only be 15 years by the time the Harry Potter TV series premieres.

That just feels too soon, especially when there's other Harry Potter stories we haven't seen. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them tried to tell the stories of the Wizarding World, and it was not super successful.

For me, that's not the most interesting story that they could tell, though! It'd be great to see the Order of the Phoenix fighting against Lord Voldemort for the first time. That's the story I think most Harry Potter fans want to see. The rise of Voldemort would also be interesting.

Or, they could do something more ambitious. There are other magical schools! There are schools in other countries. Are there other dark wizards and witches? Has there ever been a Dark Lady? Like, just do something different instead of serving us Harry Potter's seven years in Hogwarts, please.