Just three months after it launched with the service, the “Harry Potter” film series is hiking up its robes and transferring out of Hogwarts.
All eight films of the main series are leaving their current SVOD home on HBO Max and moving to rival NBCUniversal’s Peacock service in October. The move is due to a previous agreement that NBCUniversal made years ago to acquire the rights to the franchise and will retain those television and digital rights through 2025.
The films were made available on HBO Max at the time of its May launch via a new short term deal, but then it was announced they would leave the service towards the end of August.
However this isn’t a case of a simple switch from one service to the other. NBCUniversal says the films will be available on Peacock in windows, meaning they will come on and off the platform over the next six months and well into 2021.
This apparently means the films will only be on Peacock for a short while, then will leave as they begin to be shown on NBCUniversal’s various broadcast and cable channels, then return to Peacock at some point in 2021. Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” are also set to join the Peacock library in the next six months.
Source: THR
