Steven Spielberg Says Stanley Kubrick’s Death Pulled Him From “Harry Potter” to Direct “A.I.”
In another timeline, the director of E.T. took us to Hogwarts. Steven Spielberg has finally explained why he walked away from directing the first Harry Potter film — and the answer runs through Stanley Kubrick.
In a new interview with TCM, Spielberg recalled that after Kubrick died in March 1999, the director’s widow Christiane Kubrick and her brother, producer Jan Harlan, approached him at the funeral about taking over A.I. Artificial Intelligence, the science-fiction project Kubrick had been developing since the 1970s and had long intended to hand him. “I actually walked away from Harry Potter, which I was scheduled to direct,” Spielberg said.
The detail that will raise eyebrows for Potter fans: Spielberg was further along than previously reported. By his telling, the film was locked in as his next movie, he had signed on to direct, and he had even begun the casting process alongside J.K. Rowling — all while the book was already, in his words, a runaway phenomenon.
History, of course, took its course. Chris Columbus stepped into the director’s chair for the first two films in 2001 and 2002, while Spielberg’s A.I. arrived in 2001 and kicked off one of the strongest runs of his career, followed by Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, and Munich.
Would a Spielberg-directed Sorcerer’s Stone have been a dream or a different franchise entirely? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to follow along for the latest Harry Potter news.
Source: TCM / World of Reel
