The first season of HBO’s “Harry Potter” cost £147.4m by the end of 2025, according to documents reported by “The Times”. Filming was only halfway complete at that point, so the final bill is expected to be higher.
As the British daily “The Times” reports, the figure comes from the annual accounts of a production company operating under the working title “Plum Jam Productions”. British law requires companies to file yearly accounts, which is how the data entered the public domain. The document covers the period up to the end of 2025, while filming reportedly continued until May 2026.
What Is Known About the Costs
£147.4m is the spending recorded up to the end of 2025, that is, before the midpoint of production. Neither HBO nor Warner Bros. Discovery has officially disclosed the total budget for the first season, and at the time of publication we found no statement from the producer with such a figure. We do know that HBO chief Casey Bloys previously said the series would be on the scale of “House of the Dragon” or bigger.
Fan sites picked up the news, including Wizarding World Direct, which wrote that the final cost could exceed the estimated $250 million for the film “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. However, that is a comparison and a guess, not data from the documents.
Comparison With the Films and “Game of Thrones”
According to figures cited by industry media, the eight Harry Potter films cost a combined total of roughly $1.155 to $1.2 billion. The most expensive instalments, “Half-Blood Prince” and the two parts of “Deathly Hallows”, were reportedly around $250 million each, although these are estimates, as the studio does not publish full budgets.
The first season of “Game of Thrones” reportedly cost $50–60 million, and the final, six-episode season around $90 million. The first season of “Harry Potter” is, according to available information, eight episodes long, so the cost per episode works out to roughly tens of millions of dollars. It is worth remembering that £147.4m is only a partial figure.
Much higher numbers are also circulating online, for example $100 million per episode and $5.6 billion for seven seasons. Users on X added notes to such posts stating that these amounts are untrue and that earlier reports on costs were based on rumours. There is no reliable basis for such figures.
Effects and Production Design
A large share of the spending is reportedly going to visual effects, handled by the British studio Framestore, as well as to location shoots. Cinematographer Adriano Goldman told CD-Action that he would not be surprised if the series had the largest production design budget in the history of streaming productions.
What This Means for Viewers in Poland
The premiere of the first season, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, is reportedly scheduled for December 25 on HBO Max. We previously wrote about the first trailer for the series and about the new cast compared with the films. The final budget for the first season will only be known if HBO discloses it or further company accounts appear.
Komentarze