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HBO Max has sweetened the elixir for “Harry Potter” fans: It launched Wednesday with all eight of Warner Bros.’s movies based on J.K. Rowling’s popular fantasy book series.
HBO Max’s film lineup — which will serve up more than 2,000 movies in the first year — includes all of the “Harry Potter” titles, which star Daniel Radcliffe as the titular wizard whiz-kid, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, and Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley.
The films now available on HBO Max are: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001); “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (2002); “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004); “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2005); “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (2007); “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (2009); and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” Part 1 (2010) and Part 2 (2011).
In addition to those, Harry Potter spinoff “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” will also be available on HBO Max via the HBO service.
WarnerMedia’s HBO Max splashed down early the morning of May 27, with what the company says is twice the content of legacy HBO for the same $14.99 monthly price.
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The arrival of the “Harry Potter” movies on HBO Max right out of the gate is a surprise: NBCUniversal in 2016 originally inked a deal locking up TV and digital rights to the magical movie franchise that also incorporated content for Universal theme parks. It was assumed NBCU’s rights extended several years into the future. HBO Max chief content officer Kevin Reilly, speaking at TCA in January, signaled that the Boy Who Lived would be arriving eventually to the WarnerMedia outlet: “Let’s just say, at some point you can’t have our experience without having ‘Harry Potter’ be a part of it.”
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The “Harry Potter” pics, released between 2001 and 2011, rank as the highest-grossing movie franchise in history with a worldwide haul of more than $7 billion.
At launch HBO Max is available on multiple platforms — but, currently, it’s not available through Roku, Amazon Fire TV or Comcast. The service is available through parent company AT&T, Apple, Google and YouTube TV, Hulu, Charter, Samsung, Altice USA, Cox, Verizon, the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) affiliates, Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4.
Related: HBO Max Launch: How to Get the Streaming Service (and How You Can’t)
Meanwhile, films acquired specifically for HBO Max include titles from Warner Bros., the Criterion Collection, and Japan’s Studio Ghibli, which is streaming its animated favorites like “Spirited Away” for the first time ever in the U.S. Movies available at launch include “Casablanca,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Lord of the Rings,” “Citizen Kane,” “Gremlins,” and the “Lego” movies, as well as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “An American in Paris,” “Blood Diamond,” “Braveheart,” “Friday the 13th,” “Godzilla,” “Gone with the Wind,” the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise, “North by Northwest,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Singin’ in the Rain” and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”
Other movies available in HBO Max — through HBO — include “Crazy Rich Asians,” “A Star is Born” (2018), “Aquaman,” “Joker,” the “Alien” franchise, the “American Pie” series, “Anastasia,” “Babe,” “Die Hard,” “The Flintstones,” “In Bruges,” “The Indian in the Cupboard,” “Jaws,” “Moulin Rouge!” and “Teen Witch.”
Films available in the first year of HBO Max’s launch include “The Matrix,” “The Goonies,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Blade Runner: The Final Cut,” the “Lethal Weapon” series, “Monsters vs. Aliens” and “V for Vendetta.” Plus, the streaming service will have every Batman and Superman theatrical release from the last 40 years, along with every DC film from the last decade, including “Wonder Woman” and “Justice League” — with Zack Snyder’s fan-demanded “Snyder Cut” of “Justice League” due in 2021.
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