Returning Harry Potter Star Reveals HBO Reboot’s Plan to Finally Fix the Movies

Well, this feels like a full-circle moment: Warwick Davis is back at Hogwarts for HBO's Harry Potter reboot, and he says this time they actually get to do the books justice.

Warwick Davis returns to Hogwarts (and yes, in the same studios)

Davis, who played both Professor Flitwick and the goblin Griphook in the original films, is on set for the new series right now. He told Times Radio that the show is designed to go deeper than the movies ever could, mostly because TV doesn’t have to sprint through 700-page novels.

'I’m working on it at the moment, but I can’t really tell you anything other than we’re retelling those wonderful stories, but with more depth and detail than has been seen before. They’re very faithful adaptations of the book. We’re obviously telling the same story, so there are similar moments that we’re experiencing as actors on the set. But it’s weird being back in the same studios again, doing it all again, because Leavesden is where we shot the films.'

That last bit matters: the series is filming at Leavesden Studios, the same place the movies were made. For Davis, that means familiar corridors, different era.

Same story, more book

Because this is a multi-episode, multi-season series, the creative mandate is pretty straightforward: take the extra time the films didn’t have and actually include the stuff readers missed on screen. Expect character beats and side threads that got trimmed before, and a casting approach that sticks closer to the ages in the text. That should shift how certain relationships play, especially between the students and the adults from the Marauders generation.

What’s already different

• Warwick Davis is only playing Professor Flitwick this time. Griphook is now played by Leigh Gill. That lines up with the books and avoids the one-actor-two-roles shortcut from the films.
• Production is back at Leavesden Studios, home base for the original movies, which gives the reboot continuity in look and feel while starting fresh.
• Age-accurate casting: the kids and the key adults are closer to their book ages, which should tweak dynamics in ways the films couldn’t.
• Previously unshot moments are on the table, like Dumbledore meeting Nicolas Flamel after Sorcerer’s Stone and Vernon Dursley’s commute on the day the wizarding world celebrates Voldemort’s first defeat.
• Visually, the show is expected to lean brighter and more colorful than the darker, desaturated style of the later films.

Quick refresher on the numbers

Rowling wrote seven Harry Potter books. Warner Bros. Pictures adapted them into eight films, and alongside the three Fantastic Beasts movies, the broader Wizarding World has pulled in about $9.5 billion worldwide across all 11 films. The original screen trio and ensemble included Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, and Ralph Fiennes.

If you want a rewatch while we wait, the Harry Potter films are currently streaming in the US on Max.