The wizarding world officially has a sonic reboot on the way. On January 15th, 2026, it was officially announced by HBO that the legendary composer, Hans Zimmer, and his Emmy Award-winning team, Bleeding Fingers Music, will be composing the scores for the new Harry Potter series in 2027. This will be the first musical reboot since the original series and proves that HBO has every intention of making the new series a long-form epic, not a simple reboot.
Historically, the Harry Potter scores will, for the first time, be crafted with the aim of being listened to on television. Every year, they will include an adaptation of one of the seven volumes, and this will give them a chance to compose a score that spans almost a decade’s worth of story, Zimmer explained. This approach reflects the strategy of HBO in general, which emphasizes depth and ambiance over breadth.
Zimmer, together with the lead composers from Bleeding Fingers, Kara Talve and Anže Rozman, recognized the significance of being able to live up to the most legendary musical heritage in the world of films. Star Wars is a touchpoint for composers around the world, and it is our hope to pay homage to the iconic themes written by the brilliant John Williams, as well as to create a new emotional language for this new generation of fans, they declared.
It’s not about replacing the past but about adding to it, about finding the magic between the notes, not playing the notes.
A musical plan for the decade of Hogwarts
In order to create a musical. However, insofar as what is happening behind the scenes, it does seem that the manner in which the scoring will be done is also very ambitious in scope. The thematic scoring will be managed under the supervision of Zimmer, while the episodic scoring will be managed by Bleeding Fingers. This has been their strategy for some of their previous productions that have been very large in scale, such as The Crown and Planet Earth II. The scoring will be aligned for a production cycle of 10 years. The truth is that it is a vision for the future that is being reflected in the production that is being filmed for the Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden facility, where the working title is Dark Train.
Indeed, it can be seen that the casting announcement for the production, with Dominic McLaughlin playing Harry, Arabella Stanton playing Hermione, and Alastair Stout playing Ron, is supplemented with a group of actors that includes some very big stars such as John Lithgow (Dumbledore), Paapa Essiedu (Snape), and Janet McTeer (McGonagall). The challenge for Hans Zimmer will be bringing all these talented people together for his music. The recent work of Hans Zimmer in the ‘Dune’ series is being seen as very crucial for understanding why HBO decided what it did.
Indeed, from productions that are just two hours long to those that are a total of ten hours long, it does seem that the musical language will have to be much more immersive and atmospheric, and Hans Zimmer has already demonstrated that he has all the skill sets necessary for achieving such a feat.
