First look at HUGE £1bn mini-city where new Harry Potter TV series will be made – complete with school for cast members
THE new Harry Potter TV series will be filmed in a £1billion mini-town — complete with school and medical centre.
Producers are pouring money into Warner Bros’ rapidly expanding studio complex at Leavesden, just outside Watford, Herts.
It will include new roads, multi-storey car parks and vast hangars to house the sets.
A school is being built for the hundreds of young actors who will have to commit to filming for years, while a facility is needed for dogs, birds of prey, rodents, snakes, spiders and horses which will appear.
And, as our images show, execs are even using wasteland next to the studios to build an updated version of Privet Drive, the street where wizard Harry spent his younger years.
A TV insider said: “Warner Bros are making a huge commitment to the new TV show, looking at making multiple, lengthy series over the next decade.
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“So they see pumping a huge amount of cash in upfront to construct this infrastructure as a worthwhile investment which they’ll eventually get a return on.
“What they’ll have is a small metropolis which will not only provide the backdrop for the show but all the facilities the huge cast and crew need, too.”
The series, described by producers as a faithful adaptation of JK Rowling’s books, is being made by US TV giant HBO.
The three leads have not been announced yet but more than 32,000 hopefuls have sent in audition tapes.
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They hope to emulate Daniel Radcliffe, now 35, Emma Watson, also 35, and Rupert Grint, 36, who starred as Harry, Hermione Grainger and Ron Weasley in the eight films.
Animals, including Harry’s pet female snowy owl Hedwig, Hermione’s cat Crookshanks, and Ron’s pet rat Scabbers also featured heavily in the movies.
Warner Bros Studios said of the complex: “No animals are housed overnight for this, or any other production.”
In the first instalment, a house in Bracknell, Berks, was used for Harry’s Privet Drive home.
A replica now stands in the Harry Potter attraction on the 200-acre studio site, which Warner Bros leased for ten years from 2000 to make the films before buying it outright in 2010.
Homes on the new Privet Drive — in the fictional Surrey town of Little Whinging — have been updated with Tudor features.
