Last April, Warner Bros. Discovery revealed its ambitious plans to bring Harry Potter to television. Very little has been revealed since then, but Max intends to retell J.K. Rowling's beloved series of novels in an episodic format, likely with one season dedicated to each book.
Complications could arise in later seasons given the increased page count of those final few books (perhaps that will just mean more episodes), but with the 25th anniversary of The Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone right around the corner, enough time has passed that it's hard to find fault with reboot plans.
Now, Deadline (via SFFGazette.com) is reporting that the hunt for a writer/showrunner has now come down to three.
According to the trade, those are Francesca Gardiner, Tom Moran and Kathleen Jordan. Recent reports that Gardiner has landed the job were seemingly premature because a final decision isn't expected to be made until June.
As well as working on Succession seasons 4 and 4, Gardiner's credits include His Dark Materials, Killing Eve, and The Man In The High Castle. Moran penned The Devil's Hour starring Peter Capaldi, while Jordan created Teenage Bounty Hunters for Netflix and has been developing The Decameron with Orange is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan.
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been involved in the selection process but yet again made headlines this week for comments deemed anti-trans.
"I was in London a few weeks ago with Casey [Bloys] and Channing [Dungey], and we spent some real time with JK and her team," Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said last week. "Both sides just thrilled to be reigniting this franchise. Our conversations were great."
It's said the opportunity is there for more than one of these writers to ultimately be involved, with Max still open to developing additional projects set in the Wizarding World. At this stage, though, we don't expect to see this Harry Potter reboot for at least another few years.
Dungey recently addressed the biggest challenge Max faces with casting this new take on Harry Potter.
"We’re in conversations with a number of different writers to figure out who’s going to be the person to lead that franchise for us," she explained. "[Any rumors about casting being underway are inaccurate.]"
"The first step for us is figuring out who this showrunner is going to be and once we get that locked down, then we can start having those [casting] conversations," Dungey added. "The tricky part is the first two books, where the kids are on the younger end, around 11 or 12."
As always, keep checking back here for more as we have it.