Warner Bros. Discovery has found itself in a legal dispute with Sky over its upcoming Harry Potter TV adaptation.

In a lawsuit filed on September 27, Sky is alleging several breaches of a multi-year agreement between the two companies that was signed in 2019. As per the suit, this pre-existing deal gives Sky the opportunity to co-produce a minimum of four shows offered a year with WBD (then WarnerMedia) between 2021 and 2025, at least two which are to be Sky’s choice.

Sky is claiming that WBD hasn’t held up its end of the bargain—barely providing a qualifying series in certain years, and also “withholding critical, contractually required information” about the ones it did provide, impairing Sky’s ability to properly evaluate these options. 

Last year, for example, WBD greenlit a new Harry Potter series for Max (that was later rebranded for HBO) and announced an open casting call earlier this month in the UK and Ireland—indicating a potential April 2025 start date for filming. Sky emphasizes that this was yet another instance of it being “brazenly denied” the right to partner on the show, which meets all of the requirements for a qualifying series under the WBD co-production agreement, including one-hour episode lengths and plans for a multi-season arc. “Instead, Warner has largely disregarded the parties’ agreement and sought to keep the Harry Potter content for itself so that Warner can use it as the cornerstone of the launch of its Max streaming service in Europe.”

WBD is planning to launch Max—with the new Harry Potter series in its lineup—across the UK and other European markets in 2026.

According to a WBD spokesperson, the company intends to “vigorously defend itself from this unfounded lawsuit,” noting that the HBO and Max licensing agreements will expire at the end of 2025. “[This] lawsuit is a baseless attempt by Sky and Comcast to try and gain leverage in their negotiations for our programming beyond that date. We know HBO-branded shows are critical to Sky, as evidenced by their desire for over a year to find a way to renew our agreements. And this lawsuit makes it clear that Sky is deeply concerned about the viability of its business were it to lose our award-winning content.”