HBO's Harry Potter Series Is On Course to Be Among Its Most Expensive Shows
HBO's Harry Potter series is on course to be among the most expensive series the network has ever made, according to Deadline. A source familiar with the adaptation said its budget will rank alongside the final season of Game of Thrones and The Last of Us. HBO declined to comment on the budget.
The clue came from company accounts. The show is made in the UK through a company called Plum Jam Productions, a special purpose vehicle, meaning a firm set up to hold and run one production. Plum Jam filed its 2025 figures with Companies House, the UK's public register of businesses. The Times of London was first to report those earnings. The company was formerly known as Roundabout Productions, the vehicle that made the fantasy drama The Nevers.
Plum Jam reported revenue of £130.6 million (about $175 million) for 2025. That was the year Season 1 went into production at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden. In 2024, when development got underway, the company reported revenue of £18.4 million.
Deadline uses those earnings as a rough guide and estimates that Season 1 averages around £18.8 million ($25.2 million) per episode. For comparison, the final season of Game of Thrones was widely reported to have cost $15 million an episode. Revenue is not the same thing as production cost.
Much of the spending comes early. Sets built at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden are meant to serve all seven seasons, so the big upfront build is shared across the whole run. The plan is to retell each of J.K. Rowling's seven books in its own season, one book per year of television.
The first season arrives in December on HBO. The cast includes Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter, Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley and Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger. John Lithgow plays Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu plays Severus Snape, Janet McTeer plays Minerva McGonagall and Nick Frost plays Rubeus Hagrid. Bel Powley and Daniel Rigby play Petunia and Vernon Dursley.
For the people working on the show, the cost story is also a timetable story. Sets and studio space that are built once and used for years mean the crews, designers and builders stay busy long after the first episode is shot. Whatever the final bill turns out to be, most of it is tied to people doing the work on those sets.
