Why did Chris Columbus go away the ‘Harry Potter’ movie franchise after directing the first two films? The filmmaker recently explained his departure.
HBO Max’s Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts features interviews not simply with the cast of the Harry Potter movie sequence but additionally with the directors in the back of the hit movies. As Potterheads smartly know, Chris Columbus directed the primary two films — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets— ahead of leaving the Harry Potter franchise to other filmmakers.
After Chris’s departure, Alfonso Cuarón directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Mike Newell helmed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and David Yates took on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
And as Chris defined not too long ago, overseeing the blockbuster productions used to be no simple job.
Why did Chris Columbus leave the 'Harry Potter' franchise?
Emma Watson, producer David Heyman, Daniel Radcliffe, Chris Columbus, and Rupert Grint in 2002
In an interview marking Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’s 20th anniversary in November 2020, Chris informed The Hollywood Reporter he decided not to direct the 3rd Harry Potter film on account of how onerous and time-consuming it used to be to work on the first two.
“Sorcerer’s Stone took 160 days of shooting, which is ridiculously lengthy. And then, instantly once we stopped taking pictures, we started taking pictures Chamber of Secrets, which used to be every other 160 days. That’s roughly 320 days — no longer counting second-unit [filming] — back-to-back taking pictures.”
After Chamber of Secrets, Chris “could slightly speak” and felt “emotionally and physically exhausted,” he said. “I wasn’t seeing my kids, who had been younger at the time, rising up,” he added. “I used to be lacking dinners with them. I assumed, ‘I can’t do another six, seven, 8 years of this. My kids will develop up, and I’ll never get to know them.’”
Chris executive-produced ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,’ too.
Even after he gave up the director’s chair, Chris didn’t go away the Harry Potter franchise — now not immediately, a minimum of. He served as an government manufacturer of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the 3rd film within the collection.
“As a producer, I don’t have to be there always,” he explained to THR. “I will be on the set a few hours an afternoon. I will be able to sit down in on positive visual results meetings, however it manner I can get house in time for supper, to see my youngsters within the morning to move to college. And by the time Azkaban ended, my circle of relatives used to be ready to come back to the States. They ignored their buddies, and so it felt just like the logical time to say goodbye.”
He needs to make a ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ movie.
After his Harry Potter films, Chris went on to helm Rent, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Pixels, and different films. But he’s eager to return to the world of Harry Potter with a film adaptation of the stage production Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson reprising their roles from the original films. “A version of Cursed Child with Dan, Rupert, and Emma at the right age, it’s cinematic bliss,” he said.
Chris went on: “If you’re a movie nerd or cinephile, it’s kind of like what J.J. [Abrams] did with Star Wars. Star Wars really began to be nice once more when J.J. made the [Star Wars: The Force Awakens] and we had all the authentic cast again. … It was once very moving. I believe that would be the same situation for Harry Potter lovers. To be able to in truth see those grownup actors now back in those roles? Oh, yeah. It could be amazingly a laugh to make that movie — or two films.”
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