Author: Sanzhancha
At the end of last month, when I was visiting the forum, I suddenly saw a post, and I sighed— Harry Potter was forty years old.
The man with a lightning bolt on his forehead is now over the age of "nineteen years later" at the end, and is completely middle-aged.
And the batch after batch of young people who grew up with him are now mostly past the age when he defeated Voldemort.
Since the movie theater resumed work on July 20, news of the movie's release has been heard every two or three days.
Among these news, the most exciting is the release of the 4K restoration 3D version of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" this Friday (August 14) .
This year coincides with the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the "Harry Potter" series to China , and the Beijing Universal Studios Resort , including the "Harry Potter's Wizarding World" scenic spot, will also open in May 2021.
At this time, the release of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" made the fans have to exclaim "New Year's Day".
For a long time, the "Harry Potter" series of films has been a very important film and television project under Warner's. Its global popularity has also inspired other film companies to actively develop other film adaptations of youth fantasy novels, including "The Chronicles of Narnia", "Twilight" and "Percy Jackson" and so on.
They all hope to achieve the same success as the "Harry Potter" series of movies, but most of these attempts are counterproductive.
The reason is that everything must start from the day when "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was first handed over to producer David Hyman 's table...
Spielberg's refusal
In 1997, British producer David Hyman was looking for a "good start" project for his company.
Heyman has an excellent background and graduated from the prestigious Westminster College and Harvard University. In 1986, he worked in the creative department of Warner Bros., which laid the foundation for his later cooperation with Warner Bros.
At the end of the 1980s, he became the vice president of Lianmei, mainly engaged in independent film production. In 1997, he ended his overseas "worker" career in Hollywood and returned to the UK to start his own film and television company- Hyde Films .
His goal is to find an influential youth literary work and adapt it into a movie.
His first choice was "The Monster Downstairs," a novel published in 1974, but his plan ultimately failed. In June of the same year, Bloomsbury Publishing Company published a novel called "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" . Man's employees handed it to Hyman's table.
After reading it, he thought it was pretty good. After the publication of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" the following year , he proposed a plan to Warner Bros. and the two sides hit it off.
In 1999, Warner bought the rights to adapt the first four novels of "Harry Potter" for one million pounds, and hired Steve Cloves as the screenwriter.
In terms of director candidates, Warner's first choice is Steven Spielberg, who just won the Oscar for Best Director for "Saving Private Ryan" .
Spielberg heard about the project "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" from Brad Seberning , the director of "City of Angels" .
Although there are still a few movies to be made on hand, he is known for his "childlike innocence" and immediately became interested in it. Warner is also willing to cooperate with him, even if it means sharing a portion of the profits to Spielberg's DreamWorks .
Spielberg had several friendly meetings with Hyman, Rowling, and Kolov, but their differences in creation eventually separated them.
Spielberg didn't intend to "remake" the novel, but wanted to make a substantial adaptation of the novel. He even wanted to integrate the plots of the latter few into "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". In his opinion, making a movie completely according to a novel is as boring as "going to the bank to deposit money".
In terms of film style, Spielberg does not want to make a live-action movie, but wants to produce a computer cartoon similar to the style of "Toy Story", and Hailey Joe Osment can voice Harry.
Because of the different creative ideas, Spielberg eventually withdrew from the project and instead filmed "Artificial Intelligence" with Hayley Joe Osment .
After Spielberg quit, Heyman and Warner Bros. Pictures COO Alan Horn issued to the time when many of the Class A director of the offer, including "Harry Met Sally," the Rob Reiner , "Air Force One " of Wolfgang Petersen and " twelve monkeys " of Terry Gilliam .
In 2000, Peterson and Rainer dropped out of the list. Rowling preferred Gilliam, but Warner chose Chris Columbus .
Among this group of directors, Chris Columbus is more experienced in cooperating with child actors. What Warner liked was his success in "Home Alone" and "Slim Daddy" , and thought he was suitable for this kind of children's elements, Family-oriented warmth movie. And because of the influence of his daughter, Columbus himself read the "Harry Potter" novel several times.
After being selected, Columbus spent two hours showing his ideas for the movie to Warner and Hyman, including the contrasting shaping of the non-magical "Muggle world" and the magical world. He thinks that the Muggle world can be made boring and boring to reflect the fun and sentiment of the magical world. These are the inspirations he got from "Great Expectations" and "Orphan Twist".
After the director confirmed, Warner once set the release date on July 4, 2001, and later due to the consideration of the production cycle, the release date was finally postponed to November 16.
Raising a wizard requires all the strength of the United Kingdom
The novel author JK Rowling has some insistences on film adaptation. The most famous one is that all actors in the film are required to be from the United Kingdom or Ireland, unless the novel explicitly mentions characters from other countries (such as "Harry. "Porter and the Goblet of Fire" has students from two magic schools in Europe. The actors of these students are from France and Eastern Europe). Therefore, there is also a saying that British actors are divided into two categories: those who have acted in the "Harry Potter" series of films and those who have not acted.
Among the adult actors, the first to be identified were Alan Rickman and Richard Harris , who played Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore .
Subsequently, at Rowling’s insistence, Maggie Smith and Robbie Kotrani decided to play Minerva McGonagall and the giant Hagrid (it is said that Rowling brought their faces when creating these two roles. ), and then Julie Waters starred in Mrs. Weasley who appeared briefly at Kings Cross Station .
David Huris was once one of the candidates for the villain Professor Quirrell , but in the end this role fell to Ian Hart . But this is a blessing in disguise, because Huris later played Harry's father's old friend, Remus Lupin , in the third part. This role has been played in several subsequent movies.
The casting of the protagonist trio is the most difficult. Columbus and casting director Susie Feggis interviewed countless young actors, but Columbus was not satisfied. Because the front line was too long, Feggis quit the job.
As the adult actors finalized one by one, and the shooting time was near, Columbus quickly stepped up and finally finalized Daniel Radcliffe , Emma Watson and Rupert Grint .
Interestingly, Radcliffe's parents initially declined the invitation to star, and Watson was interviewed eight times before being selected.
Because Rowling insisted on an all-English team, where to shoot became a headache for Hyman and Warner. In order to promote the development of the British film industry, two British officials in charge of related fields specially flew to the United States and issued an invitation to Warner.
They proposed that they could provide necessary support for filming, including assistance in clearing out locations, permits for long-term use of the Levison film and television base outside of London, and amendments to the laws related to the employment of child actors (increasing the weekly working hours of child actors by a little bit) ).
In return, they hope that the filming and production of the film will be completed in the United Kingdom. While promoting the economy, they also hope that "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" can be a complete "British movie" because of its novel " Culturally very British".
"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was filmed on September 29, 2000 at the Levisdon Film and Television Base, and the filming ended in March the following year.
The film’s location stretches across the British Isles, from the train station in North Yorkshire to the buildings of Oxford University to the Harrow School in London.
In order to match the visual effects of the movie, the crew chose a lot of church-like buildings to shoot on location, forming the architectural style of Hogwarts that we see now.
Because the word "Sorcerer's Stone" in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is expressed in different ways in the United States and the United Kingdom (the Philosopher's Stone in the United Kingdom and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States), so all involved in the filming process " The lines of "Sorcerer's Stone" will be filmed with two expressions each.
Probably because of his previous experience with child actors, Columbus showed extraordinary patience with the young actors in the filming of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", which impressed many adult actors present.
In order to maintain his role, Smith, who played Professor McGonagall, had a cold face throughout the set, which made many small actors feel a sense of distance.
A hard-won good start
On December 1, 2000, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" released the first poster.
On March 2, 2001, the first trailer of the film was released.
On November 4th, the film premiered in London, and the scene was decorated as the appearance of Hogwarts.
The day before the release, a game of the same name produced by EA (an American game company that once launched popular games such as "Red Alert" and "The Sims") was launched to create momentum for the film.
"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" broke a number of box office records at the time:
Won a box office of $32.3 million on the first day of its release in the United States, breaking the first-day box office record of "Star Wars Episode 1" ; having a box office of $90.3 million at the weekend of the week, he became the box office champion of the first weekend of the year. "Jurassic Park 2" record.
According to Box Office Mojo calculations, a total of 55.9 million people watched the movie in the United States.
In the United Kingdom, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was also in such a bad shape. Not only did it gain 16.3 million pounds in the first weekend, it also became the second-highest box office in British film history at the time with a total British box office of 66.1 million pounds (at the time). The first is "Titanic").
In the end, the film won a global box office of 978 million US dollars , topping the box office charts, and is the highest-grossing film in the series except for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2)" .
In terms of reviews, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" has also gained a good reputation.
Most film critics gave positive comments on the film's restoration of novels. The special effects of Quidditch and magic elements are satisfactory. The teenage adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione are also very attractive.
"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" received many nominations and awards that year, including three Oscar nominations for best art direction, best costume design and best original soundtrack .
Revisit the wizarding world
Both films directed by Columbus have a strong style of juvenile adventure stories, attracting a large audience.
Although this style was changed by Alfonso Cuarón in the third part , it must be admitted that Columbus created the success of the "Harry Potter" series of films (the second part "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" "Achieved $878 million at the box office) so that this series has the momentum to continue.
The "Harry Potter" series of movies have also become one of the few series that have not changed any actors except for reasons of force majeure such as illness.
The visual style that Chris Columbus laid for the wizarding world, including the famous moving staircase and the auditorium, has a profound influence on the creation of the next few movies.
In 2002, when "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" was about to be released, Chris Columbus announced that he would no longer direct the next film. Alfonso Cuarón took over the guide tube and became the second director. "Lee Potter" film series has undergone a revolutionary change, but this is already another story.
With the shooting of the "Harry Potter" series of movies, Warner is also focusing on the development of peripheral products, making the magic wands, magic props, costumes and badges in the movie into peripherals, and selling them in the souvenir shops of Universal Studios or film bases. .
The most classic and most popular are the magic wands , including the holly wood wand of the protagonist Harry, and the elderberry wand, which is one of the Deathly Hallows.
There is also the Horcrux series , Tom Riddle's diary, Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup.
Who doesn't want to own a Gryffindor sword?
Putting on this wizard robe, I feel that I am also a wizard.
Do you also have some treasured surroundings?
Every fan of the "Harry Potter" series of movies since childhood is waiting. Perhaps one day, an owl will send them an acceptance letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am no exception. I just feel that As I grow older, my childhood dreams and imagination begin to drift away from myself.
Now, let’s go back to the days of waiting for owls every day, pick up the wands, cloaks, badges and scarves that we have accumulated for many years, and go to the cinema on August 14 to watch the 4K restoration and 3D version of "Harry Wave Special and the Sorcerer's Stone", let's revisit the magical world together.
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