Recently, Steven Spielberg revealed why he turned down Harry Potter; here’s why he would have been a great fit.
The Harry Potter film series is a highly successful franchise based on the books of the same name by J.K. Rowling. These masterpiece films follow a young wizard’s adventures through a magic school career that captured fans’ imaginations everywhere when they were released. A combination of four different directors directed the films. Famously, Steven Spielberg was also originally asked to direct them. In an interview with Reliance Entertainment, he recently revealed that he only turned them down because he wanted to spend more time with his family. Spielberg said that he had no regrets about rejecting them. Still, with Spielberg behind the wheel, it is very possible that they could have been even more successful than they ended up being. This is because the content of Harry Potter is well suited to Spielberg’s strengths as a director, giving Spielberg the perfect foundation to hit the material out of the park.
His Visual Techniques
Perhaps the thing that Spielberg is best known for out of all of his qualities is his visual filmmaking techniques. He has several visual techniques named after him because of how well he popularized their use of them. One technique is called the “Spielberg Face.” This involves a close-up reaction shot to something awe-inspiring. Spielberg would have used this technique to significant effect to capture the feeling of awe and wonder in the setting of a magical school of wizards. The shot is so iconic that it has spawned offshoot shots as well, and other filmmakers will intentionally subvert the Spielberg Face because of how much audiences are trained to expect it.
People have coined a term to describe his visual expertise’s effect on a film. A film becomes Spielbergian when it allows the audience to become invested in rich characters and start believing in something bigger than ourselves. This quality of his films is a perfect fit for Harry Potter. It would have pushed the films to greater heights if he had directed them.
He Is an Expert at Directing Action
One criticism often seen online of the Harry Potter films is that for most of the runtime, they are light on action, and the action that we see is awkward by Hollywood standards. Harry Potter could have used Spielberg’s expertise in directing action films that he acquired over many years with movies like Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park. When directing action, Spielberg has an acute sense of scale. He uses massive crowds and knows how to get the right shots to direct them effortlessly to multiply the drama of a scene. His action set pieces are unrivaled across his catalog of classic films because he knows how to ramp up the scale to make scenes more exciting.
Spielberg Can Easily Adapt His Style to Any Situation
Another unique quality of Spielberg that makes him an excellent fit for Harry Potter is his very versatile directing style. Spielberg has continually demonstrated that he can turn just about any genre of movie or story into an instant hit. The proof of his versatile style is that, unlike many directors, he is not known as a single-genre director. Many directors get known as horror directors or action directors, but Spielberg is so adaptable that he cannot be easily placed into a single category. His adaptability would be a significant asset to the Harry Potter films since the story draws from a diverse range of different genres during its lengthy runtime.
He Is a Master at Capturing Emotion on the Big Screen
Spielberg’s filmmaking skills have helped him produce huge emotional payoffs in his movies that resonate with audiences and stick in their memories for years afterward. He accomplishes this through a combination of visual techniques and a heavy emphasis on treating the story right. Spielberg will often draw audiences to relate to characters with average qualities. As audience members, we want to see them succeed in fantastical ways that seem impossible at the beginning. This tendency is one that the Harry Potter films also lean into, making the story very compatible with how Spielberg likes his films to be. Another reason he succeeds at capturing emotion is that he can make fantastical worlds feel believable and overcome the suspension of disbelief through the use of clever filmmaking and stunning special effects.
Steven Spielberg Is the Most Successful Director of All Time
According to Statista, Spielberg is the highest-grossing director of all time, and it isn’t even that close. He has generated over $10 billion dollars in global box office gross in his career. It is an outstanding figure that outpaces his competition by a fair margin. It is only recently that James Cameron is starting to approach his level with recent successes at the box office, having $8 billion in global box office gross. If Spielberg had been the director of the Harry Potter films, it would have definitely made them more financially successful than they ended up being.
