Streaming the Harry Potter movies: HBO Max or Peacock?

HBO Max and Peacock are two streaming services coming in 2020. Which one will see the arrival of the Harry Potter movies? Will either see them?

WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal are bringing their own streaming services. Naturally, it’s led to a war of the streamers for the Harry Potter movies. Which one of the two will the movies head to, if they’ll head to either at all!

It’s understandable if you think that HBO Max will get the movies. After all, the Harry Potter movies are Warner Bros. movies. It’s Warner Bros. that owns all the licensing rights and even made the movies. The company also makes the prequel spin-off Fantastic Beasts movies.

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But the movies won’t head to HBO Max (WarnerMedia’s streaming service). At least, not likely right away. Right now, NBCUniversal holds the rights to the movies, which is why you see them airing on SYFY and USA Network frequently. Both of these channels are child companies of NBC.

NBC is bringing its own streaming service, Peacock. This is where the movies will likely be available to stream at first. With NBCUniversal holding the rights until 2025, it’s more than likely the movies are heading to Peacock.

That is unless a new deal can happen. Naturally, WarnerMedia wants all the exclusive rights back. It wants to put the moves on HBO Max, knowing that this will be a huge draw to many people. How many of you continually ask Netflix to put the movies on there?

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For Peacock, it doesn’t make too much sense to offer up the license back. At least, not at a big cost to WarnerMedia. This original deal was struck in good faith back in 2016 and brought into effect in 2018, according to Business Insider. Neither company had any inclination of bringing their own streaming services when the deal was initially struck, but we knew deep down that it was going to happen.

Right now, it’s looking like Peacock will stream the movies. The streamer will come first (in April 2020 compared to HBO Max’s May release date) and currently holds the rights. There’s no need to offer them up for virtually nothing, so WarnerMedia probably won’t get them back until 2025. And when WarnerMedia gets the movies back, you know they’re heading to HBO Max.

Of course, we also have to ask the question of whether them being on a streaming service is that big of a deal. Don’t most of us own the movies on DVD or Blu-ray because we’ve watched them long before streamers were a big deal?

Would you sign up to a streaming site just for the Harry Potter movies? How do you currently watch them? Share your thoughts in the comments below.