Harry Potter's 2024 Max Viewership Numbers Reveal How Many Users Still Stream The Movies

This may not come as a huge surprise, but it turns out that the "Harry Potter" movies are remarkably popular. To clarify, despite the fact that the first movie based on J.K. Rowling's best-selling books came out nearly 25 years ago, it remains a streaming juggernaut. To that end, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," aka "The Philosopher's Stone" outside of the U.S., was one of the most popular streaming titles in 2024.

According to numbers provided by Digital-i, (via Deadline), "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was viewed over 40 million times on the Max streaming service last year. Though not widely regarded as the best "Harry Potter" movie by any means, being first clear counts for a lot. Digging deeper into the numbers, director Christopher Columbus' film reached nearly 20% of Warner Bros. Discovery's total subscriber base, which is pretty remarkable.

These numbers, more specifically, were provided by Digital-i's British streaming exports list for 2024. This list measures viewing from outside of the U.K. on Netflix, Disney, Prime Video, and Max in the U.S., as well as Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Latin America, and Europe.

One could argue this is an example of so-called "newstalgia," where something old becomes new again thanks to streaming. In any event, the numbers help to reaffirm that Rowling's tale about a magical boy names Harry remains remarkably popular around the world. So many big movies and TV shows that cost millions upon millions to make regularly flame out on various streaming services. Yet, this 2001 feature is still pulling in huge numbers.

That's almost certainly why Warner Bros. Discovery is moving full-steam ahead on the "Harry Potter" TV show for HBO and Max, which is expected to premiere sometime in 2026. For several years now, the franchise has been living in the shadow of J.K. Rowling, who has been controversial due to her continued commentary regarding trans people. The author has made many transphobic statements, which has made her an unpopular individual in some circles. It's been suggested that "Harry Potter" needs to move on without Rowling as a result of these statements, but that's not going to happen, as Rowling does retain creative control.

For all of the controversy, the franchise, even beyond these streaming numbers, is evidently popular. "Hogwarts Legacy" was the best-selling video game of 2023, generating well over $1 billion in revenue for Warner Bros. There was also the special "Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts" produced for Max in 2022. This is to say nothing of the Wizarding World theme park attractions, merchandise, and other revenue generated in recent years. It's a monster.

The "Fantastic Beasts" spin-offs flamed out after three films, but even those were quite popular before "The Secrets of Dumbledore" failed both critically and commercially. The point is, Warner Bros. has every reason to believe that continuing this franchise in some way, shape, or form is a good idea from a pure dollars and cents perspective. In the era of uncertainty that Hollywood is living in right now, that's too attractive to ignore.