The third season of HBO's hit series The White Lotus will premiere in February 2025, and the second installment of The Last of Us will follow months later, Warner Bros. announced.
Revealing its upcoming global programming slate, HBO and streaming service CEO Max Casey Bloys also confirmed that the highly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, will be released later next year.
In addition, the first Harry Potter TV series - announced last year and currently in the casting process - will begin filming in mid-2025 at Warner Bros.' Leavesden Studios in the U.K., Bloys said.
Among the executive producers is mega-selling author JK Rowling, and the series is conceived as a "ten-year series" with a new cast from the films.
The Inheritance director and executive producer Mark Mylod revealed at the London event that the casting team is currently reviewing 32,000 applications for children's roles.
"We'll look at every single one," Mylod said, adding that the team currently reviews between 500 and 1,000 tapes a day. They then hope to hold a "workshop with some of the shortlisted applicants" in January.
"We follow the ethos of the films by looking for the best British actors, not necessarily the biggest stars," the director added.
In recent years, Rowling has been accused of transphobia for focusing on biological sex rather than gender identity in her comments about transgender women. She denies the accusations.
Asked if she was worried that her involvement in the production could prove problematic, Bloys responded that he was "not worried." | BGNES
