taking up the role of Dumbledore for the show. “The overall concept of this entire reboot of Harry Potter is an entire season is devoted to a single novel,” Lithgow said. “You know, Dumbledore is — he’s kind of the nuclear weapon. He only goes on very, very occasionally. I don’t think it’s gonna be that hard a job, and, we’ll just go back and forth.“

Deadline now reports that Shaun of the Dead star Nick Frost is closing a deal to portray Hagrid in the HBO series. The character was known as Hogwarts’ warm and friendly gamekeeper, as well as groundskeeper. Hagrid would also eventually become the Care of Magical Creatures professor. In all eight of the Warner Bros. Harry Potter movies, the character was portrayed by Robbie Coltrane. While HBO has yet to announce this casting, they have only said, “We appreciate that such a high-profile series will draw a lot of rumor and speculation. As we make our way through pre-production, we will only confirm details as we finalize deals.” However, Frost delivered a cryptic message on his Instagram that teased, “It’s happening, it’s actually happening.”

As for Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, upwards of 32,000 kids have auditioned for the roles, and the selection process is still ongoing. Succession‘s Francesca Gardiner will serve as a writer and showrunner on the series, while Mark Mylod signed on to executive produce and direct multiple episodes. The project was originally developed for Max but made the leap to HBO (along with a variety of other Max shows) last summer.

Each season of the Harry Potter TV series is said to cover one of J.K. Rowling’s novels, for a total of seven seasons. While the movies were able to fit quite a lot in, there were plenty of moments cut from the novels that the TV series will finally be able to bring to life. Last year, the studio released a statement saying, “Each season will be authentic to the original books and bring Harry Potter and these incredible adventures to new audiences around the world, while the original, classic and beloved films will remain at the core of the franchise and available to watch globally.” Production is expected to kick off this summer.

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.