HBO announced that it would be moving forward with Harry Potter Season 2/Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in May, and the reboot has now found another of its villains.
Fresh from playing the DCU's Lex Luthor in Superman, Nicholas Hoult has been cast as the debonair Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart. Thor director Kenneth Branagh portrayed the character in the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets movie released in 2002, with Kit Harington taking over in Audible’s Full-Cast Editions audiobooks.
Hoult reprises his role as Lex Luthor in next summer's Man of Tomorrow and will begin filming Harry Potter this Fall. He’s previously appeared in TV shows Skins (which put him on the map as an actor), Hulu's The Great, and Peacemaker. The British actor is also known for Mad Max: Fury Road, Juror #2, and Nosferatu.
Deadline (via SFFGazette.com) describes Hoult's take on the character as "notoriously vain, boastful and fame-obsessed wizard well versed in Memory Charms who is recruited by Dumbledore as Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts."
"A five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award, Lockhart authored many books on dark creatures and his supposed encounters with them," the description adds.
The next big Harry Potter Season 2 casting news will surely be who plays Tom Riddle, the young Lord Voldemort who manifests out of his old diary. If Voldemort has been cast, that actor could be de-aged for the role. We also don't know who will voice Dobby.
Earlier this year, it was confirmed that Jon Brown, a writer on Season 1, has been promoted to co-showrunner on Season 2. He joins Francesca Gardiner, who was the sole showrunner on The Philosopher's Stone.
In The Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter's summer has included the worst birthday ever, doomy warnings from a house-elf called Dobby, and a rescue from the Dursleys by his friend Ron Weasley in a magical flying car.
Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his second year, Harry hears strange whispers echo through empty corridors—and then the attacks start. Students are found as though turned to stone... Dobby's sinister predictions seem to be coming true.
The main cast of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone includes Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley, John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid, Rory Wilmot as Neville Longbottom, and Lox Pratt as Draco Malfoy.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone premieres on HBO Max this Christmas.