HBO's Harry Potter Is Picking Up Right Where Game Of Thrones Left Off

Published Oct 19, 2026, 5:15 PM EDT Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy. Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones). The Harry Potter TV show is wasting no time picking things up where Game of Thrones left off. While these are, of course, two very different sorts of fantasy series, we are sure to hear plenty of comparisons in the years to come. It's hard to think of HBO without thinking of Game of Thrones and vice versa, so the fact that this will also be the home for Harry Potter is significant. This is another absolutely massive IP, and it seems pretty evident from the outside looking in that HBO expects Harry Potter to be its new Game of Thrones. If there's any doubt here, the approximate budgets of these projects should clear it up. Game of Thrones kicked things off in 2011 with a fairly standard prestige TV seasonal budget of about $50 million (about $5 million per episode). However, the budget really took off in season 6, which cost HBO approximately $100 million. Things stayed within that range for the remaining seasons, but the per-episode cost peaked at $15 million in season 8. Any fantasy TV show tends to get more intense and financially demanding as it goes on, so it makes sense that Game of Thrones' budget would have grown so much by the end. This would also seemingly be a sign for new TV shows in this genre to reset the meter. For example, we could expect Harry Potter season 1 to cost HBO just north of Game of Thrones' season 1 budget—perhaps around $70 million. That's not how it shook out. Rather than start from the beginning and work its way up, Harry Potter took Game of Thrones' ending budget and raised it by another good handful of cash. HBO's Harry Potter Will Ultimately Speed Right By Game Of Thrones' Budget Credit: HBO via MovieStillsDB It took Game of Thrones some time to reach a cinema-worthy budget, but HBO's Harry Potter is diving right in. The platform hasn't officially confirmed its spending for season 1, but annual reports suggest that by the end of 2025, the Harry Potter TV show had already gone through about £147.4 million. This comes in just under $200 million, which is already much higher than the budget for all of Game of Thrones season 8. Because this is only the first season of the Harry Potter series, we can almost certainly expect the price tag to go up with each subsequent installment. Sure, much of those season 1 set and prop builds will be reused over the next decade, so those specific costs might not need to be repeated in quite the same way. Still, as the story matures and the magic of this world further develops, the costs are sure to get pretty hefty. That $200 million is only the beginning. What is also intriguing about all this is that filming for Harry Potter season 1 continued well into 2026 and was then followed by tons of post-production work. That $200 million might have doubled by the time season 1 wrapped, meaning Harry Potter's budget has completely outpaced Game of Thrones'. Said and done, this series will be astronomically more expensive than HBO's figurehead fantasy series. A High Budget Does Not A Good Fantasy Show Make There are several pros and cons to these high price tags. When Game of Thrones began to kick up its spending, it meant an increase in on-screen quality. The battles played out in greater detail, and the dragons grew larger and larger. Of course, that didn't necessarily translate into reception. The final season of Game of Thrones is the least popular by far, while those earlier, cheaper seasons are considered the gold standard. It's a sign that Harry Potter could still be great with a lower budget, but it's important to remember that Game of Thrones has a soft magic system. Yes, this is a fantasy world, but aside from a handful of fantastical elements, it looks a lot like our own historical day-to-day. This isn't the case for Harry Potter, which will absolutely need extensive special effects to work. This is expensive, and HBO's willingness to pay that price from the very beginning is a sign that things are being done right—right? That brings us to another example. Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is considered the most expensive fantasy TV show to date. Season 1's budget was approximately $465 million, and that doesn't include the $250 million paid to the Tolkien estate for adaptation rights. There's no question that Rings of Power is a beautiful series, but it isn't the same sort of clear hit as Game of Thrones. It's a whole lot of additional money for a product that isn't as highly regarded as a much less expensive show. Said and done, it's difficult to say precisely what those figures will mean for Harry Potter. However, the fact that the series has picked up and run forward the price tag Game of Thrones left off on by no means indicates a great show. As with any series, cheap or expensive, we can only wait and see. Harry Potter Release Date 2026 - 2026 Showrunner Francisca Gardiner Cast Dominic McLaughlin Harry Potter Arabella Stanton Hermione Granger Alastair Stout Ron Weasley Janet McTeer Minerva McGonagall Harry Potter is HBO's adatation of the iconic Wizarding World book series tby J.K. Rowling. The first season, The Philosopher's Stone, follows the titular Harry Potter as he discovers his magical potential, enrolls at Hogwarts, and begins to uncover a sinister force. Game Of Thrones 10/10 Release Date 2011 - 2019-00-00 Showrunner David Benioff, D.B. Weiss Based on George R. R. Martin's ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, Game of Thrones is a fantasy drama set in the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos. It follows noble families like the Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryen vying for control of the Iron Throne while a rising threat from the undead looms in the North.