How should Harry Potter IV & V be handled in the movies? (POSSIBLE SPOILERS)

Cafe Society
1

Having just plowed my way through Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix this past week, I got to wondering how books with such large page counts will be handled if and when they are made into motion pictures. The first two movies went to great lengths to include almost every detail, and those books were less than 300 pages. How to handle adapting a book that is 600+ or 800+ pages long? Especially, when there may be certain “hints” that Rowling will need included for the sake of the series.

  1. Make a four or five hour movie! (Unlikely the theatres would like this one - fewer possible showings a day, and wouldn’t kids get restless around hour three?)

  2. Make a two 1/2 hour movie! (Tightly presented, with only the important need-to-see stuff. Better for pacing, but it means a loss of whole scenes and/or chapters and/or plotthreads) This could of course be expanded to a longer version for the DVD release, much as has been done for Lord of the Rings.

  3. Make two (or three) movies! Double the profits, as kids would want to see “Goblet of Fire Part I” and “Part II”.

2

I was wondering about this myself. I think 1 is out of the question for a children’s film. I don’t know about 2; they would have to make massive cuts which I suspect the fans won’t like. 3 seems the most logical though they would have to release the two parts pretty close to each other.

3

Plus don’t forget time marches on. If they want Daniel Radcliffe and the rest to play the same characters in all of them they’re gonna have to hurry it up unless they want ‘90510’ style ‘teenagers’

4

I think the two movie method will have to be used, unless J.K. gets some serious help with the adaptation. Longer books have been made into shorter movies.

5

I was under the impression that they had already decided to cut GoF in half (I think the break was going to be after the first task), and show one half in summer, one half in fall. Can anyone corroborate this, or did I dream it?

6

look!ninjas, it seems like it’s been considered, but no final decision has been made.

7

So it doesn’t seem like a good idea to hold up Prisoner of Azkaban until the end of '04, does it…?

8

They could shoot multiple-part movies for a given book simultaneously, as was done for Back to the Future II andIII, the second and third Matrix movies, all three LOTR movies, etc. That would minimize the problem of the kid actors visibly growing in what cinematically would be a tiny span of time.

I sure hope they won’t be forced to recast the roles… all of the three main kid parts are SO perfectly cast.