Say what you will about the quality of the Harry Potter film franchise. The fact is: the adaptations of author JK Rowling’s best-selling novels are incredibly successful and even today, after 2011’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”, the last part of the series, they are almost as popular and in demand like the moment they hit the cinema. Even the interest in spin-offs has persisted, even if the future of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series is far from certain.
The multi-award-winning and legendary director is said to have also belonged to the circle of creators of the “Harry Potter” films Stephen Spielberg can count, as he recently did in an interview with cheated. Around the turn of the millennium, he got the chance to direct “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” thus starting the movie saga. But Spielberg refused – and to this day has never regretted it.
That’s why Steven Spielberg didn’t want to become a Harry Potter director
Anyone who thinks that Spielberg just didn’t like ‘Harry Potter’ or wasn’t up for such a gigantic mainstream project is dead wrong. The decision against the sorcerer’s apprentice with the thunderbolt scar on his forehead had many more personal reasons: Spielberg wanted to see his own children grow up, he wanted to spend quality time with his family and not go abroad to film:
“The decision to take a job and live in another country for four or five months without being able to see my family every day, this debate about art or family, it was really a breaking point, a tearing experience,” says Spielberg, who married his wife Kate Capshaw in 1991 and had children with her. When the director’s seven children were young, he never left their side. When he photographed abroad, he took the whole family with him. Instead of filming “Harry Potter” in the UK, he worked on “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise – and was able to stay in Los Angeles.
By the way, exactly this ordeal is at stake, including in Spielberg’s next film “The Fabelmans”, in which the director deals with his own childhood and youth. The Oscar-nominated film will be shown in German cinemas from March 9, 2023.
Anyone who now feels like watching a “Harry Potter” movie again, will have the chance this Saturday. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” runs from 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, May 1. The complete Harry Potter film series is also available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.