Harry Potter is leaving the HBO streaming service

[Dumbledore]

This wouldn’t be the first time that HBO lost the Harry Potter films, as they had the films when they launched in May 2020 before losing them after 3 months. They got the rights back again in September 2021, but now fans will have to look elsewhere if they want to revisit the Wizarding World. If you’re wanting to do a Harry Potter marathon, you might have to add Peacock to your streaming services, because all eight movies are leaving HBO Max.

The movies that will be leaving the platform include Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the Chamber of Secrets, the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Goblet of Fire, the Order of the Phoenix, the Half-Blood Prince, the Deathly Hallows Part 1, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. You have until August 31 if you want to watch the films. HBO won’t be losing all of its Harry Potter content, though. You can still watch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. While these aren’t quite as beloved as the original films, it’s still better than nothing. Also, HBO will continue to be the home of the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts reunion special. The special saw stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson reunite and featured various other members of the cast and crew.

As mentioned, you can still head over to watch all of the Harry Potter films on Peacock. The push and pull between Peacock and HBO for the Harry Potter films is certainly an odd one. Although Warner Bros owns the Harry Potter franchise and HBO, they signed a deal with NBCUniversal (who owns Peacock) in 2016 giving them the TV rights to the franchise. It seems like Warner was able to put together a deal to get the films back a couple of times in the interim, but the deal extends out to April 2025. The navigation between huge media companies is always a weird and delicate process, as one can see with this franchise.

Source: GFR