'Harry Potter' books to be recorded as full-cast audio productions
Apr 26, 2024
Los Angeles [US], April 26 : There's great news for 'Harry Potter' fans.
J.K. Rowling's seven original Harry Potter books are getting a massive new audiobook series. Yes, you read it right Potterheads.
Amazon's Audible and Pottermore Publishing, the global digital publisher of Rowling's Wizarding World, will co-produce a brand-new audiobook series for the original seven Harry Potter stories. The new audiobooks are scheduled to premiere in late 2025, with each of the seven English-language titles to be released sequentially for a global audience, exclusively on Audible, as per Variety.
The companies said the full-cast audio productions -- with more than 100 actors -- will "bring these iconic stories to life as never heard before." The new audiobooks will provide "immersive audio entertainment through high-quality sound design in Dolby Atmos, stunning scoring, a full range of character voices and real-world sound capture," Audible and Pottermore Publishing said.
The original single-voice English-language Harry Potter audiobooks, featuring Stephen Fry and Jim Dale, will continue to be available. Those were first published in 1999. Since they launched on Audible in 2015, the audiobooks have reached 1.4 billion global listening hours in total.
Neil Blair, Chairman of Pottermore Publishing said: "We are delighted to be collaborating with Audible on what will be a ground-breaking audio edition of the beloved Harry Potter stories. J.K. Rowling's storytelling lends itself perfectly to the application of new audiobook technologies, and we're certain this sophisticated, immersive audio experience will not only add a new listening dimension for existing fans but will introduce a whole new generation of listeners to the wizarding world."
Further details about the new Harry Potter audiobooks -- including content and production, global release dates, voice casting, and how to access the audiobooks -- will be released later. The project is unrelated to the eight Warner Bros. movies chronicling the saga of the boy wizard.
