The latest trailer for HBO’s Harry Potter TV series is here, giving fans a fresh look at the small-screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s books. But to many viewers, it doesn’t look all that fresh.
The trailer, which landed on Wednesday, follows young wizards Harry Potter (Dominic McLaughlin), Ron Weasley (Alastair Stout) and Hermione Granger (Arabella Stanton) through their first year at Hogwarts. We see Harry being sorted into Gryffindor, wearing an invisibility cloak and playing Quidditch — all key moments from the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and the 2001 movie that introduced Harry’s world to the big screen.
But the big complaint from fans and critics is that it’s just far too similar to the movie.
Vulture noted that the clip “is basically just a greatest-hits collection of the first movie’s most memorable beats,” right down to the camera angles and line deliveries, while SlashFilm said it “looks pretty much exactly like a movie that came out 25 years ago.” Inverse agreed, saying it looks “awfully familiar.”
Posting on X, TV writer Caitie Delaney called the clip “stupid, depressing, soulless” and asked why HBO adapted the same story without “even a hint of an aesthetic departure from the original.”
Actor and filmmaker Luke Barnett wrote, “Kind of hilarious that the Harry Potter show is basically shot for shot the original and has no reason to be made other than the fact it’s absolutely going to be the most watched show in the history of HBO and make a trillion dollars.”
One Harry Potter fan account said the trailer was “very strange to watch,” adding, “I am so attached to the actors from the films that seeing other actors play those same characters is extremely weird.”
Other fans said they were anticipating the show’s original scenes, rather than the moments already depicted on the big screen. “The original scenes are gonna make or break the show for me,” one wrote on Reddit. “I’m personally excited for them the most.” Another said, “Definitely an exciting prospect but also the easiest way they could go wrong if those original scenes take a direction that doesn’t feel authentic.”
Can HBO make Hogwarts feel new again?
That’s the key challenge facing HBO’s adaptation, which premieres on Dec. 25: finding a way to make the show feel new without changing the world that fans already know.
When the series was announced in 2023, Warner Bros. called it a “faithful adaptation” of Rowling’s books that would introduce a new cast to a “new generation of fandom.” The studio also made clear that it wasn’t leaving the movies behind, saying the original films would remain “at the core” of the franchise.
HBO boss Casey Bloys said the series would give audiences the opportunity to “discover Hogwarts in a whole new way.”
A new cast is stepping into a familiar world
The new production is being filmed at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in England, where all eight original movies were made.
But HBO has recast almost every familiar face at Hogwarts, with McLaughlin, Stout and Stanton taking over the central roles played by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. John Lithgow is the new Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu is Severus Snape, Janet McTeer is Minerva McGonagall and Nick Frost is Rubeus Hagrid. Warwick Davis is the exception — he’s returning as Professor Filius Flitwick, the role he played in the original movies.
The creative team is new too. Succession writer and producer Francesca Gardiner is the showrunner, with Succession director Mark Mylod directing multiple episodes.
Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer is leading the team creating the show’s new score. “The musical legacy of Harry Potter is a touch point for composers everywhere,” Zimmer and fellow composers Kara Talve and Anže Rozman said in January, adding that they would be “honoring what has come before.”
The familiar look of Hogwarts goes beyond the movies
There’s another reason the look of Harry Potter may be difficult to reinvent. The movies didn’t just define Hogwarts onscreen — their version of the wizarding world was later recreated in theme parks and attractions worldwide.
Universal has said its Harry Potter lands were deliberately designed to make visitors feel as though they had stepped into the films, with Warner Bros. creatives helping to replicate their look as accurately as possible.
That’s led some fans to wonder how much freedom the TV series really has to change things. “They have to keep it the same because the theme parks already exist,” one viewer wrote on X. Another said that the show has to “copy the entire look of the movies” because of the existing theme parks.
Neither HBO nor Warner Bros. has said that the theme parks dictated the show’s production design. But Mylod has said the series will preserve some familiar elements while expanding others. “We don’t want to mess with the likes of the Great Hall, but other elements of Hogwarts we will expand,” he said in 2024.
The TV series will have more time to tell the story
Bloys told Variety in March that adapting Harry Potter for the small screen gives the writers more time to spend with Rowling’s characters and stories. Turning a book into a roughly two-hour movie requires “difficult decisions” about what to leave out, he said, while television gives the story more room to “breathe.”
Rowling made the same point in 2023, saying the TV format would allow for a “degree of depth and detail” that wasn’t possible in the movies.
HBO is also betting on a new generation of viewers. The first movie was released 25 years ago, and Bloys noted that many of the people who grew up with Harry Potter now want to share it with their children. He said it was a “big opportunity” from a “business point of view.”
Season 1 will have eight episodes, giving the series considerably more time with Harry’s first year at Hogwarts than the original movie, which ran for 2 hours and 32 minutes. “The movies only had two hours; we have eight hours,” Lithgow told CBS in June. “There’s much more storytelling to do.” HBO has already renewed the show for a second season based on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
For now, though, fans only have the trailers to judge — and some are still waiting to see what this version will do differently.
