New Harry Potter TV Series in Production
Quote from Heatherlly on March 27, 2025, 6:11 pmWouldn't that be great?
I've been trying not to get my hopes up because I don't want to be disappointed, but there does seem to be a pattern in how these casting choices have gone. The actress who was rumored for McGonagall changed at some point, and both the Dumbledore and Hagrid rumors turned out to be wrong.
Also, you have a point about potentially stirring up controversy. I mean, if you were going to choose someone who was the literal opposite of Snape for that purpose, Essiedu would be a great choice.
Ohh, I wasn't aware of the McGonagall and Dumbledore switch-ups! Care to share who were in the rumours and who it were that it ended up being?
Well, I just saw the post shared on social media by the Harry Potter, HBO and Max pages.
Seems the rumours are true. I can't say I'm surprised, but I sure am disappointed by one specific casting.
Came on here to see if anyone had seen it yet.
For fuck's sake...
The series will be a faithful adaptation of the beloved Harry Potter book series by author and executive producer J.K. Rowling.
Well, if nothing else, at least the suspense is over. I can't say I'm not disappointed, but honestly, that goes a lot deeper than Essiedu. All I wanted was for once - just ONCE - to see an accurate representation of BOOK Snape on screen. That isn't Paapa Essiedu, and (forgive me) it wasn't Alan Rickman either.
That said...
There's a good chance they would've gotten it wrong no matter WHO they cast. These people - be it HBO execs, show runners, actors, sometimes even JK Rowling herself - don't see Snape the way we do. Some are in it for the money, some are obviously willing to shit all over the source material for the sake of a career opportunity, so on and so forth. These aren't people we can trust to do him justice... hell, we're lucky that we even got an interpretation as good as Rickman's.
Maybe that will change one day, maybe it won't, but none of us should hold our breath. In my opinion, we should just keep doing what we've been doing, which is interpreting and envisioning Snape in ways that feel true to the character and are meaningful to us. That could be writing and/or reading fanfiction, discussion and meta, fan art, etc. That, to me, is where Snape truly comes alive, and the best part is that we don't have to depend on anyone else, least of all those who don't give a shit about the character unless he's making them money.
I'm not telling anyone to boycott the show. That's obviously a personal choice. All I will say is that now more than ever, I think it's important to "keep Snape alive", so to speak. Don't let anyone, particularly greedy corporate interests, tell you that your version of Snape isn't valid and should be replaced. I mean, if you see Snape as a good looking black guy, fair enough, but if you don't? Keep writing, reading about, and discussing YOUR Snape, and don't let anyone tell you you're wrong (or racist) for doing it.
I'm so sad. 🙁 I was really looking forward to this show and hoping for a book accurate Snape. (I'm not a big fan of Alan Rickman's Snape either. He's a great actor, but he's not an accurate representation of Severus, both in terms of appearance and personality.)
From these six characters, they could have changed anyone else's race without changing the story and the character. Why didn't they make McGonagall black? Or Hagrid? Filch? Quirrell? Why change an appearance of a character that's described in every book and is supposed to look completely different than the actor chose to play him? I don't believe that there was no other actor who was as good as Paapa Essiedu but looked more like Severus Snape.
Now I only hope that Severus will be more in canon in terms of personality (at least they got his age right). Though really interesting scenes for Severus come in season three which we may never even see.
Interesing that Max blocked comments on their posts about casting, both on Instagram and Facebook, even though you can comment their every other post.
Of course they turned off commenting. They want to gaslight the public into believing that most fans are on board with this choice. 🙄
Just checked Max Instagram account and all comments in the post about The Brutalist streaming premiere are about HP casting, most of them with the tag #notmysnape 👏🏻
I'm not surprised.
It's almost comically stupid that they think they can shame or ignore fans into wanting this. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.
Oh well, I can use all the time I would have spent watching this to continue making my sequel game. I'm sure it won't be the last remake of HP someone attempts. Well known books/films tend to get remade multiple times. Just because this one has failed, doesn't mean the next won't be amazing. It's just annoying having to wait a few more years.
I was reading responses to the Variety story over on Facebook and stumbled across this comment. 100% spot on and very well articulated. Probably the best take I've read so far.
Martin William Kleebank
Let’s take a moment to talk about how truly misguided it is to race-swap a character like Severus Snape, especially if you're claiming to produce a "faithful" adaptation of the original Harry Potter books. Casting anyone other than a white man in this role fundamentally changes the character's dynamic within the story and the relationships that define him. The only acceptable exception would be a complete cultural reinterpretation, where all characters are reimagined within a new framework—such as O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which recontextualized Homer’s Odyssey within the American South. If that’s not the intent, then what HBO is doing is not creativity—it’s performative interference masquerading as progress.
This decision exposes a deeper problem with modern Hollywood: a complete lack of narrative integrity and an unwillingness to acknowledge when changes are actually harmful to the story. Let’s be honest—this likely didn’t originate with the creative team. More than likely, Paapa Essiedu’s representatives pushed aggressively for the role, and HBO, fearing backlash or eager for publicity, caved. In doing so, they clearly didn’t care about the broader ramifications—how the casting choice distorts critical character dynamics and compromises the internal logic of the world J.K. Rowling created.
Snape’s entire arc is rooted in the social structures and biases of an Anglo-European magical world. Recasting him as a Black man drastically alters the meaning of his interactions, especially with characters like James and Lily Potter. Imagine the implications: James becomes a privileged white bully who publicly humiliates and even physically assaults a Black classmate—hanging him upside down in front of the entire school. Lily, Snape’s lifelong friend, not only abandons him during these moments but eventually marries his tormentor. These changes are not just cosmetic—they reframe Lily and James as racially insensitive at best, and cruelly indifferent at worst. Suddenly, the tragic loyalty that defines Snape’s character becomes loaded with racial and social baggage that Rowling never wrote and likely never intended.
Furthermore, Snape is not a clean-cut hero. He’s a morally gray character—a former Death Eater who joined a fascist movement aiming to exterminate Muggles and "lesser" magical beings. His redemption arc comes from his deep, unrequited love for Lily, the very person who, in this version, chose the racist over him. He becomes a double agent for Dumbledore—arguably under duress—fighting for a world that still sees him as an outsider. Casting a Black actor in this role adds unintended racial subtext that clashes with the original narrative. It begins to feel less like a tragic character arc and more like a deeply problematic portrayal of racial exploitation and trauma.
And what about the future of the show? HBO says this is a decade-long commitment. Then why cast John Lithgow, who’s pushing 80, as Dumbledore? This suggests a profound lack of long-term planning. It's almost certain Dumbledore will need to be recast halfway through. The same might apply to Snape—not due to age, but because of the inevitable backlash. When audiences resist this change, Paapa Essiedu’s defenders will cry racism, ignoring the very real narrative dissonance this casting introduces. Fans will be labeled reactionary for wanting characters to remain faithful to their original depictions.
What’s most frustrating is that no one seems to have thought about what this means for Paapa Essiedu himself. This is not just any role—it’s a long-haul commitment to playing one of the most morally compromised, psychologically complex characters in modern literature. For ten years, he’ll be associated with a character many people view as a bitter, angry man who spent his life serving a manipulative system that used and discarded him. There's a word for that—one we won’t say—but the racial implications of putting a Black actor in that role should have made HBO think twice.
This is not about gatekeeping or racism. It’s about preserving the artistic integrity of a story that millions of people love. When you race-swap a character like Severus Snape without altering the world or context he exists in, you're not being inclusive—you’re being careless. You're setting your actors up for failure, your show up for controversy, and your audience up for betrayal. It’s not bold. It’s just stupid.
