There had been early talk of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire being made into two separate installments, a-la Kill Bill, due to the length of the novel, but instead filmmakers opted to simply cut the story down a bit due to time constraints and SCI-FI Wire brings us news from Update magazine, the official magazine of Comic-Con International, concerning this matter.
Director Mike Newell told 14-year-old Harry Potter fan Brianne Cisneros, “This is a very difficult matter, and is worked out in huge discussions between representatives of Warner Brothers, the scriptwriter, the producer, the director, and sometimes J.K. Rowling… It takes a long time, and while it’s happening you constantly seesaw back and forth on certain things—Dobby should be in, Dobby should be out, Dobby should be in, Dobby should be out, and so forth. After a while, everybody gets a feel for what would work in a movie as opposed to what works in a novel.”
So what all was cut? Well, Newell went on to say that scenes with Harry’s foster family, the Dursleys was one item, “Because we were making one, not two films, and something had to be let go, we decided the Dursleys were one of those things… We were sad about it. What’s good about it being one movie is that the Tri-Wizard Tournament and Voldemort’s plot to get Harry become very taut and very exciting because a lot of the purely descriptive stuff in the novel must be let go. That means the main story becomes a very tight, exciting, fast-paced thriller. Of course, what you miss are the fascinating little details which, in some cases, there just isn’t room for. So it’s swings and roundabouts. What can I tell you?”
For those of you attening the 2005 Comic-Con in San Diego July 14-17th you will be welcome to several bits of Potter promotion as the film will be highly publicized during the event.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opens everywhere on November 18th, click here for much more Goblet goodies.
