There's no denying that Steven Spielberg is the most iconic director of all time and has made some of the biggest films ever. I have a huge amount of respect for the guy and am not gonna deny his talent...but there is one thing that I will never forgive him for, as petty as it sounds. Back in 1999, when Warner Bros were still in the pre-production stages of making Harry Potter into a feature length film, they were looking for a director, and one of the names passed around was Steven Spielberg. Spielberg actually had some interest in making the films, however, he ended up not getting the job at the demand of J.K. Rowling, and I don't blame her. Some of Spielberg's ideas for making the film all sound terrible, first of all, he wanted to make the series animated, which doesn't sound too terrible, but also doesn't sound necessary, and considering that this was the transitioning stage between 2D and 3D animation, the film would most likely have looked dated as it went along in the series, as well as not helping to compliment the darker tone of the later films of the series. He also wanted to make the film American...now of course this is a big disrespect to the books and a completely pointless change, but again, this doesn't work. Why do you think every character in Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones has an English accent? Because we pretty much own the fantasy genre, that sense of whimsy and magic, that's something that has also been associated with us and because of that, audiences are able to get sucked into the diegesis of the world because of previously established conventions. That's not to say that American fantasies don't work, but when a huge chunk of the books are based around British Culture and Americanizing it would mean changing a lot of both characters and environments. Also it implies that people won't connect with the film, just because it's set in a different country, again, this is fantasy, you'd be surprised what people would accept. And also he wanted to cast Haley Joel Osment as Harry Potter...yeah because his career was nothing but up in the 2000's.
It's reported that Spielberg, while interested in the film, also stated that "it would be no challenge to make Harry Potter" which is quite ironic considering all of his ideas for the film sound absolutely terrible. Fact is, Spielberg let his ego grow too big, he didn't understand the source material and could have ruined the greatest children's book of this generation. Spielberg, I love ya, but this is something that I am still pissy about today, just because you're an experienced filmmaker, doesn't mean that you can take a popular book, make pointless changes and instantly assume it'll be good, people put their heart & soul into making this franchise as good as it was, both book & film, and if you think it would have been no challenge at all then you clearly didn't deserve the film.
-Danny
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