HBO’s Game of Thrones Replacement Has One Major Problem

While HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series might be its perfect potential Game of Thrones replacement, the series has one major problem that the earlier hit didn’t have to navigate. While HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones changed fantasy TV history forever, the show still doesn’t have a successor that has replicated its cultural reach.

The official Game of Thrones spinoffs, House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, are both successful, but neither show has become the biggest series on TV as the original series was in its prime. Similarly, although later shows like The Rings of Power, Arcane, and The Witcher had budgets to match Game of Thrones, they didn’t share its ubiquity.

In the years since Game of Thrones ended, shows like Outlander, Interview with a Vampire, and Castlevania have proven that R-rated fantasy remains critically credible and can produce mainstream successes, but none of these shows have been anywhere near as huge as the series. In theory, HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter reboot could change this.

Unlike Game Of Thrones, HBO Must Adapt Harry Potter In A Strict Order

There are numerous reasons to believe that HBO’s Harry Potter show could replace Game of Thrones as the biggest fantasy series of all time. For one thing, the show is family-friendly while Game of Thrones was infamously explicit, so its potential audience is far larger. For another, Harry Potter’s HBO show hopes to cash in on two generations at once.

Since the original books were released between the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, the Harry Potter show aims to appeal to both children who were too young to watch the original movies when they came out and adults who want to revisit the nostalgic series. This is a potentially massive audience, especially in comparison to Game of Thrones’ strictly adults-only reach.

Months before the show’s release date, HBO Max’s making-of documentary Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic already leaped to number one on the streaming service’s most-watched list when it was released in March 2026. However, the Harry Potter show still has a number of major hurdles to overcome before it can outdo Game of Thrones.

Not only is the show obviously adapting the same books as the original movies, but the HBO project specifically has to start with the first and slowest book in the seven-novel Harry Potter series. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is infamously slow about getting to the good stuff, i.e. Hogwarts, and this could prove costly onscreen.

Readers are forced to spend a long time with the Dursley family and endure their tiresome mistreatment of Harry before Hagrid finally arrives to bring him to Hogwarts, and a TV show’s longer runtime is apt to make this existing issue much worse. The Harry Potter TV show will inevitably devote more screen time to this plot, but this is a potential problem.

Harry Potter Season 1 Will Inevitably Be One Of The Weakest

Although George RR. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga was a popular, bestselling book series before the show began, its knotty, complicated plot was not familiar to a mainstream audience. Looking back, it is striking to see just how shocking, subversive, and original season 1 of Game of Thrones was, from the pilot episode onward.

The first episode of Game of Thrones ends with a child seemingly being killed by one of the main characters, and the first season wraps up with the primary protagonist, played by the show’s most famous actor, losing his head. While a few viewers had read the books beforehand, most fans were gripped and, more importantly, utterly shocked.

The popularity of Game of Thrones’s biggest deaths, from Joffrey’s well-earned poisoning to the infamous Red Wedding, is proof positive that the show was best known for shocking audiences with unexpected plot twists. In contrast, viewers are painfully familiar with every single story beat from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

The creators of the HBO show are caught in an impossible catch-22, since the show can’t change the plot of the book without angering fans, but a straightforward retread would feel entirely redundant. HBO’s big Harry Potter format change makes this problem worse, as retelling the story of the first movie and book will be harder with a longer runtime.

HBO’s Series May Prove Why Harry Potter Was Better Suited For Movies

Harry Potter’s TV show is missing one pivotal Game of Thrones writing trick, as the show can’t simply cut between various main characters and their separate stories to keep things feeling lively. The original books are for children, so they follow a simplistic, predictable plot progression that would be familiar even if viewers didn’t literally know the entire story off by heart already.

The books that HBO’s Harry Potter show is adapting don’t lend themselves to the subversive, time-twisting storytelling that makes most post-Game of Thrones fantasy shows feel unpredictable and original. Furthermore, the fact that the show is aimed at children means this sort of ambitious experimentation with narrative would be unwelcome regardless.

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This, combined with original Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s public history of transphobia, means that the HBO show may end up failing to replicate the popularity of Martin’s earlier screen adaptation. When the Harry Potter reboot arrives, HBO’s new Game of Thrones may instead prove that the books always belonged on the big screen after all.

Release Date

2011 – 2019-00-00

Showrunner

David Benioff, D.B. Weiss

Directors

David Nutter, Alan Taylor, D.B. Weiss, David Benioff