First Harry Potter HBO TV Series Set Photos Reveal A Key Location From The Books

We're getting our first look at the new "Harry Potter" series already, thanks to a shot of what appears to be the set for 4 Privet Drive.

During his summers away from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the titular Harry Potter — who was played by Daniel Radcliffe in the original film franchise and, as of this writing, will be played by a young unknown in the TV show — is forced to spend time with his non-magical Muggle relatives, the Dursleys. Not only are the Dursleys really mean to Harry (his Aunt Petunia, played by Fiona Shaw, resents the magical world after her sister became a witch and she didn't, and her husband Vernon and son Dudley, played by Richard Griffiths and Harry Melling, happily follow her lead), but Privet Drive, in the fictional town of Little Whinging, just seems like an unpleasant place to spend time. Based on social media posts, it looks like the Privet Drive set — meaning, the "entire" street — is being built right now.

There are some specific reasons why this is notable. First of all, we know some of the cast of HBO's forthcoming "Harry Potter" series, including John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore and Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, but if Privet Drive is already under construction, we could learn who's set to play Harry and his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, pretty soon. (Ron and Hermione are played by Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in the original movies, and all three of these characters will be played by young actors who will presumably grow up on the series.) Second, you might be wondering: Why can't the show just use the same Privet Drive set at Leavesden Studios from the original movies? Well, it's part of a studio tour now, so that's not possible.

We've been getting a steady drip of news about the forthcoming "Harry Potter" series for a while now, and if I'm going to continue this metaphor, the faucet should turn on fully any time now. With Privet Drive's construction underway, we can make a safe assumption that filming will begin before long, especially if the series plans to stick to its 2026 debut. (That, it should be said, can change; HBO recently announced that one of their "Game of Thrones" shows, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," has been pushed back to 2026 instead of sticking to its planned 2025 release. Stuff happens!) But because the original set is now a tourist attraction at Warner Bros.' sprawling English compound Leavesden Studios, the TV series has a herculean task ahead of it now that it has to build more or less everything from scratch. (As far as Privet Drive is concerned, you'd think they could just use any random British street, but I'm not a production designer.)

The final movie in the original franchise, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" (this franchise kicked off the somewhat interminable trend of splitting one story in half), came out in 2011, so if this is somehow the first you're hearing of the "Harry Potter" TV reboot, you may be asking one question: "Why?" It's a perfectly valid query. I'm pretty worried about how this whole thing is going to turn out even as a lifelong fan of "Harry Potter," and when you add in series author Joanne "J.K." Rowling's near-constant attacks on transgender women, the plot, so to speak, gets much more complicated. With some casting choices locked in and more to come — as well as sets being spotted by fans — the "Harry Potter" TV reboot train will pick up full steam soon enough, so I suppose we'll all just have to batten down the hatches and prepare for the wizarding world to return to our screens, albeit the small ones this time.

The original "Harry Potter" films are streaming on Peacock.