Now that the Harry Potter franchise will be rebooted in the form of an HBO series airing on Max, rumors are flying around about who will play the iconic characters. Among the many rumors is Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy could take on the the villainous Lord Voldemort. While no casting has been confirmed as of this writing, one prominent person associated with the franchise — Chris Columbus, who directed the first two installments of the original Harry Potter films — thinks this is a great idea. “Well, Cillian is one of my favorite actors, so that would be amazing,” he recently said on an episode of Watch Happens Live (via EW). “Cillian is a fantastic actor. I actually think that’s a wonderful, wonderful suggestion. I would be all in favor of Cillian.”
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Though Ralph Fiennes was an amazing Voldemort in the Harry Potter feature films, Murphy would be an excellent choice to portray Harry Potter’s archnemesis. Murphy has garnered considerable acclaim in the popular TV series Peaky Blinders; however, it was his Oscar-winning performance as the lead in Christopher Nolarn’s Oppenheimer that put the actor on the map in a big way for lead roles.
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Because the Harry Potter Max series is still in early development, not much is known about it just yet. It was previously confirmed that there was an open casting call for the three main leads of the series, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. In addition, the Harry Potter series has confirmed some book characters cut from the movies entirely will appear.
“The series will feature a new cast to lead a new generation of fandom, full of the fantastic detail and much-loved characters Harry Potter fans have loved for over twenty-five years,” according to HBO. “Each season will bring Harry Potter and these incredible adventures to new audiences around the world, while the original, classic and cherished films will remain at the core of the franchise and available to watch globally.”
Only a handful of key players have been confirmed for the Harry Potter show, such as showrunner Francesca Gardiner, costume designer Holly Waddington, and writer Laura Neal. Filming is set to take place sometime this summer, with a release date sometime in 2026 or 2027.
Casey Bloys, the Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, has stated that the series will take place over ten years, with a schedule of one season per year. As there are only seven books in the main book series, fans have speculated that the accompanying guidebook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them could be incorporated into the Max series, but Warner Bros. has stated that the show will only focus on the flagship book series.
Columbus admitted on Watch Happens Live that the runtime restrictions of doing individual films meant that he and the writers had to cut out considerable scenes from the source material. “The fact that they have the leisure of [multiple] episodes for each book, I think that’s fantastic,” the director stated. “You can get all the stuff in the series that we didn’t have an opportunity to do…all these great scenes that we just couldn’t put in the films.”
The Harry Potter films are available to watch on Max.