Composer Hans Zimmer claims his score for HBO Harry Potter will be "as far away as possible" from John Williams' work, and people on Twitter have mixed reactions

Giuliana Tiscioni • Writer

Sep 22, 2026 7:00 AM EDT

When a remake is made, it's only natural to compare it to the original, and you'll likely find differences between the two.

The Harry Potter remake is not the exception. Some people cling hard to the original movies; some people never liked them because they weren't faithful enough to the books, and some others (the very few) see the remake as an opportunity to adapt all the little details and nuances that the movies had to leave out due to a lack of time to include them. For starters, it will be great to see how Harry and Ginny's relationship develops, since they don't seem to make much sense in the movies compared to their chemistry in the books.

In this case, the debate started on Twitter over a comment made by the composer for the TV show, Hans Zimmer. He mentioned that the score he's preparing for the series will be totally different from the one John Williams originally wrote for the movies, and that's when people online almost jumped at him.

It's understandable that millennials who grew up with the original movies and it's magical sounding score are feeling a bit hurt and nostalgic about the changes in the music that transported them to Hogwarts so many times during their childhoods. After all, it might feel like they're disregarding something that won the hearts of millions of young people back then. We have to say it: the entire soundtrack for the movies is amazing. It sounds like magic, which is very appropriate. It transmits an aura of mysticism as well as a slightly uncanny sensation, like you're still in the human realm, but not completely, and I think that's what makes it amazing. He understood the world perfectly.

Even so, I believe it's too soon to discard Hans Zimmer's work. He's been in the industry for years now, and he has some great scores in his portfolio, such as Interstellar and Pirates of the Caribbean. We can't deny that those are amazing. I, for one, believe it's a good thing he's not trying to imitate Williams's work. It shows that he respects the original material and composer enough not to try to replicate it or make some sort of "bad copy," so to speak. The TV show is a new version of the story, different from the movie adaptation, and the music will be made for it. Each representation will have a score tailored to it. Williams's music was made with the movies and those actors' and directors' vision in mind as well. Here, we have a new set, new actors, new directors, and a new vision that needs music made especially for it. We need to give Zimmer the space to compose and the opportunity to show what he can do with this material. After that comes out, feel free to choose the score you like best, but no one can judge something without seeing it (or hearing it) first.