“There is no other franchise (like it),” says producer David Barron, a close ally of the original producer, David Heyman, who first bought the rights from author J.K. Rowling. Barron has been involved with four of the six Potter films to date and now, along with Heyman, he is preparing the two-part finale with director David Yates.
“The Bond franchise has been around a lot longer,” Barron says of the 007 spy movies based on Ian Fleming’s novels. “But they’re all individual stories. This is a singular story that has taken seven books and eight films to tell.”
Is there anything else out there that is similar to Harry Potter, at least in terms of the potential cultural impact? “If you find one,” Barron says with a rueful laugh about any post-Potter franchise he could adopt, “I’ll split the profits with you!”
Profits? The six Potter movies to date cost an estimated $905 million U.S. to produce, according to Box Office Mojo. They generated more than $5.5 billion in worldwide box office. Each instalment also has sold tens of millions of copies on DVD — with a Blu-ray bonanza waiting to explode.
Meanwhile, for The Half-Blood Prince, the filmmakers have created the most generous DVD and Blu-rays ever for a new Potter release. “I have very mixed feelings about it,” Heyman admits. “I made — we made — a conscious decision early on to reveal very little. If you look at the early DVDs, there is very little behind-the-scenes materials. That was for a couple of reasons. We wanted to preserve the mystery. And I think there is real validity to that, although we are probably the only film in the world that now takes that position. The other reason that we withheld is that we didn’t want to put anything on the DVDs that would show how things were being done in the upcoming film. We wanted the pleasure of the new film not to be interrupted. Now that we’ve come to the end (with the production of Deathly Hallows), we’re a little more comfortable. On this sixth DVD, for instance it is much more open in terms of what we are showing.”
Among other insights, you get personal time with the core cast, the youths the filmmakers affectionately refer to as “the juvenile cast.”
Tom
“We were so young,” “We weren’t actors. We looked like the characters they were trying to portray and we showed a certain element of willingness, I guess. But I am absolutely stunned at how well everyone has developed. I am not being patronizing in the slightest, but Daniel and Rupert and Emma are all phenomenal actors now. And they carry the films on their own shoulders (as much as) all the big adults we have, as well.”
Each of the youths comes across as a great person, too. “You’re bang on,” Felton says. “Really, no one has gone Hollywood, as we say. No one has gotten ahead of themselves. Everyone is still really normal, whether it is one of the crew members or one of the higher cast members. Everyone seems to get on fairly well. And I think the adults find it kind of refreshing coming in on a set where everyone feels equal. It doesn’t suddenly feel there is an awkward hierarchy on set where certain voices should be heard over others.”
And no one, Felton says with a grin, “does a Christian Bale” on any Potter set.
Jessie
“They’re very professional, everybody here,” Cave says. “There is a good work ethic and that was another reason why it was quite comfortable to come in and to get down to the work. You’re just surprised because they are such nice people. Maybe I was cynical but I didn’t expect them to be so nice and I didn’t expect them to be so warm and so lovely. They were really nice to me. I mean, it’s just the dream come true — and Lavender is such a great character.”
“I learn to fly an owl, which is cool,” Cave says. “It was beautiful, but docile. I was a bit shocked. I thought I was going to be really squeamish but I was okay. And I was just happy to share with everybody how much goes into this.”
The goal, Cave says of the extras, was to educate fans while showing the personal side of the actors. “I think it’s great because you see people having fun on set as well. You see what they’re really like.”
“On the first two films, they were really, really young,” Heyman says of a decade ago when Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone first went into production.
“It was literally: ‘Chin up, look left, look right. Come on Dan — Rupert, stop laughing!’ It was literally that. And now they give as good as they get. They ask questions about motivations, about characters. They’re more active collaborators and that evolved over time.”
Heyman has predictions about co-stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson:
“Dan will continue acting and maybe directing. I think he’s interested in that.
“Rupert will continue acting. Rupert is one of the most original people you will ever meet, really lovely. He’s a one-off. And I think Rupert is a really talented actor with great comic timing."
“Emma, if she wants, can be a movie star. She is hugely talented and incredibly in touch with her imagination. She is fiercely intelligent and I think she could do whatever she chooses to do.”
“There is tremendous stability and I think that has been partly responsible for it. And here we are at Leavesden (a former Rolls Royce airplane engine factory plunked down amid farm fields). It’s not exactly the most glamourous place, nor the most accessible.”
So the kid actors grew up into young adults without the lure of nightlife or bad influences. And they could all thrive in the relatively closed, unpretentious environment of Leavesden.
“None of us really, truly appreciates what we’re fully into,” Tom Felton says. “And we won’t until it finishes, I’m sure.”
1 comment:
Harry Potter a great name to every one. I like most to read Harry Potter and movie also enjoyable. Thanks J.K Rowling.
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