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Chris Columbus Says He Was Terrified Every Day That He Worked On HARRY POTTER Thinking He Might Get Fired

Director Chris Columbus helmed the first two films in the Harry Potter films in the franchise, and though Columbus is a trusted director, who has successfully made several hit films that have stood the test of time like Adventures in Babysitting, Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Stepmom, he was intimidated by the scope of these films and the weight they carried. In a 2020 interview with Collider, the director said:

"The reality is the pressure of the world was upon us, and on me particularly because I knew if I screwed this one up it's all over. You can't screw up this book. So I had to go to the set every day with sort of tunnel vision in terms of not thinking about the outside world, and that was a lot easier 19 years ago before the internet blew up." He went on to talk about the fact that he was a ball of nerves the entire time, but hid it from his cast and crew: "The first film was fraught with anxiety for me. The first two weeks I thought I was gonna get fired every day. Everything looked good, I just thought if I do one thing wrong, if I fuck up, I'm fired. And that was intense. I didn't let any of that show on the set, there was no frustration, I'm not a screamer, I get along with everybody and I want everybody to feel like they're part of the family, so I just had to hide that side of my emotions." Columbus was asked when he knew he had nailed the adaptation, and he relayed a story about screening an early cut that was almost three hours long for audiences in Chicago: "By the time we finished the film and we screened it in Chicago – it's good luck for us to screen our films in Chicago, so back in the day when we could go to a movie theater we would fly to Chicago and show the film to an audience – the audience loved it. The audience just ate up the film. The film was two hours and fifty minutes long at that point and the kids thought it was too short and the parents thought it was too long." 18 minutes ended up being shaved off that cut to make what we ended up seeing in theatres. The director said he was bolstered by that first screening and was finally able to relax while directing the second film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which was shot back-to-back with Sorcerer's Stone: "So I started to feel a little relief, and then when the first movie opened well I had so much more fun on Chamber of Secrets. It was like night and day, because then I could really let loose a little bit and bring a little bit more of my particular style to the movie. That was a very specific choice, the style of the first Potter movie, but part of it we were boxed into because as I said we had three cameras on the kids at a time. They were brand new, they had never been on movie sets, so they would say a line and they would look into the camera and smile. The first week they were just so delighted that they were in Harry Potter, it meant the world to them, so they would just be smiling like they were in a trance. So that was something we had to overcome as well." Columbus handed the directing reins over to Alfonso Cuaron for Prisoner of Azkaban after the exhaustive process of making those first two movies back to back, and when I asked if he ever considered returning to the franchise, he confirmed he would have loved to have adapted the final book but admits director David Yates — who helmed the final four Potter movies — did a terrific job: "I always wanted to go back and shoot the final two movies, but Yates decided he was gonna stay with the series, and it was a great thing to do because I particularly love the very last movie. I think that is just a brilliant film, the second part of Deathly Hallows." All the movies turned out to be pretty great. The only complaint from a fan's perspective was that so much of the story was cut from the films based on books 4-7. But I'm hoping that gets rectified in the upcoming Harry Potter series that is headed to MAX.

Date For New Harry Potter Book Announced

The eagerly awaited fifth instalment of Harry Potter will hit bookshelves on June 21, it was announced today.

The next JK Rowling novel about the boy wizard - possibly the world's biggest publishing phenomenon - is to be called Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix.

It will be even longer than the last at 255,000 words.

Goblet Of Fire, the fourth Potter outing, was 191,000 words.

There had been speculation that the author, now one of Britain's wealthiest women, had been suffering from writer's block when the book failed to materialise months ago.

She denied it, but the book has had a far longer gestation period than its predecessors.

It had been expected in print last year and a gap of three years will have passed since publication of Goblet Of Fire.

The book will be 38 chapters long, one more than the last Potter.

It is easily the world's most anticipated book and booksellers are bracing themselves for a massive wave of orders.

The title has now been deliered to the publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic and will go on sale simultaneously around the world.

Nigel Newton, chief executive of Bloomsbury Publishing, said: "We are thrilled to announce the publication date. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is absolutely superb and will delight all JK Rowling's fans.

"She has written a brilliant and utterly compelling new adventure."

The new book begins: "The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive... The only person left outside was a teenage boy who was lying flat on his back in a flowerbed outside number four."

Teasingly the publishers have revealed that Harry will be told a secret which will change his world forever.

In the book, Rowling writes: "Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses.

"'It is time,' he said, 'for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry.

"'Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything."'

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Is There A Pixar Version Of Harry Potter On Disney Plus?

Gabriela Silva

  ❘   Published: 2023-11-17T17:40:11  ❘   Updated: 2023-11-17T17:40:21

The wondrous world of Harry Potter will never go away – and neither will its fanbase, as a recent viral TikTok of a supposed Pixar version of Harry Potter on Disney Plus has fans excited. But is it real?

One of the most successful franchises in movie history is undoubtedly Harry Potter, originally a popular book series by J.K. Rowling. Since its inception on the silver screen in 2001, it developed eight movies up until 2011.

Since then it has kept its title as a global phenomenon becoming theme park attractions, museum installations, devoted merchandise stores, and many more. It's also gotten a Broadway production, spinoffs, and an upcoming TV series. But the original cast is likely to never return to their world of the world of wizardry.

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Fans have recently gotten excited over a popular TikTok video showing Harry Potter in Pixar form for Disney+. But how trustworthy is the source, and is it real?

No, there's no Pixar version of Harry Potter on Disney+. A viral TikTok claimed to have found a Pixar version of the Philosopher's Stone, but it's fake.

TikToker @tony.Aube posted a video showing a TV screen on the Disney+ app, before selecting the Pixar category. Among the list of options like Dug's Day and A Bug's Life is what appears to be a Pixar version of Harry Potter. The title is Rowling's first book and movie installment: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

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The TikTok then proceeds to show the loading icon and a seemingly real Pixar version of the popular movie. By all account, the video looked incredibly convincing until die-hard Potter fans looked for the movie themselves.

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One fan commented: "How quickly I went to my Disney+ and was so disappointed this isn't real."

Another said: "May you never know peace, may happiness taunt you by staying ever so slightly out of your grasp, may joy disappear from your daily life."

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Others wondered how they were able to create a convincing fake video and make it appear as part of the Disney Plus site. Some spent a good 10 minutes looking for the Pixar version, comparing it to taunting a baby with candy.

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You can find out more about the Harry Potter TV remake here, and check out some of our other TV and movie hubs below: 

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