‘Sacrificed a great franchise’: Steven Spielberg REVEALS why he doesn't regret refusing to direct first Harry Potter film
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Steven Spielberg has no regrets about turning down the chance to direct 'Harry Potter' movies. The 76-year-old director had the opportunity to direct 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone', the first installment in the wizarding franchise based on J.K. Rowling's novels, but opted to pass on the project in order to spend more time with his family.
The father of seven who shares son Max, 37, with his first wife Amy Irving, and Theo, 34, Sasha, 32, Sawyer, 30, Mikaela, 28, Destry, 26, and step-daughter Jessica Capshaw, 46, with wife Kate Capshaw, said he needed to put his children first. Chris Columbus directed 'The Sorcerer's Stone', which received three Oscar nominations and catapulted child actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint to global fame.
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'I chose to turn down the first Harry Potter (film)'
In a conversation with Indian director SS Rajamouli, the Golden Globe winner said, "There were several films I chose not to make. I chose to turn down the first Harry Potter to basically spend the next year and a half with my family, my young kids growing up. So I'd sacrificed a great franchise, which today looking back I'm very happy to have done, to be with my family." Spielberg continued, "Kate and I started raising a family and we started having children. The choice I had to make in taking a job that would move me to another country for four of five months where I wouldn't see my family every day."
In 2012 the 'Schindler's List' director explained that he knew the film would be a big hit, as per Digital Spy. "I just felt that I wasn't ready to make an all-kids movie, and my kids thought I was crazy. And the books were by that time popular, so when I dropped out, I knew it was going to be a phenomenon."
Oscar nominations for 'The Fabelmans'
Spielberg is currently nominated for three Oscar Awards, including Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Original Screenplay for his most recent movie, 'The Fabelmans'. This comes after Spielberg revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic was what motivated him to create the movie, which is based on his own life. "I was terrified this was an end-of-days, and epic-level event, I mean an extinction-level event, that was happening to the world," the movie director revealed, as per NME. "If I got the chance to make one more movie, it was going to be this story," he added.