UK: Director Michael Newell and the young Daniel Radcliffe discuss the new Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"

He had the backing of one of Hollywood's biggest studios and a budget he called "colossal", but British director Mike Newell was continually fighting over money while filming the latest Harry Potter blockbuster. In a weekend interview to promote "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", Newell said his experience was not unlike that on smaller movies where he felt there were never enough funds to get the job finished. But he praised Warner Brothers executives for giving him creative freedom and allowing him to explore the dark side of the world of sorcery in his movie based on the fourth of seven books planned in J.K. Rowling's bestselling Harry Potter series. Scenes of death, destruction, and a graveyard confrontation between Potter and his nemesis, the evil Lord Voldemort, mean the movie has been rated unsuitable for pre-teenagers to watch unaccompanied by adults, limiting its box office potential. "I very clearly remember that within a couple of months of starting work I was intensely angered by the lack of money, that there wasn't enough money to make the film properly and that really pissed me off," Newell told Reuters. He gave the example of the effects-laden opening scene, set at the Quidditch World Cup, which was the subject of heated debate among filmmakers and producers. Eventually he argued successfully for its inclusion, saying that without it Potter fans would feel short-changed. Creatively, however, he had an easier ride. "Warner Brothers and the producers were quite extraordinary about letting me go." Newell believes he was chosen to direct the fourth film in the hugely successful Potter series because of his reputation both for romantic humour, as in "Four Weddings and a Funeral", and for darker films like "Donnie Brascoe". The result is a movie that ranges from the comic awkwardness of teenage romance as the pupils of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry prepare for the Yule Ball, to fear and danger as Voldemort tries to destroy Harry. The 63-year-old director described the resulting two-and-a-half hour feature as "a kind of fusion of a children's film and an adult's film." He did not disclose the budget of Goblet of Fire, which goes on general release on November 18, though Web sites have said it was between 130 and 170 million U.S. dollars. Not that bigger budgets means bigger box office. The first Harry Potter film released in 2001 cost an estimated 125 million U.S. dollars to make and amassed 976 million U.S. dollars at the box office, while the third film, released three years later, cost around 130 million U.S. dollars to make and took in 790 million U.S. dollars . Newell, the first Englishman to make a Potter film, said he would like to direct the seventh and final episode in the Potter series. He is also in talks to bring Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera" to the big screen. Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry in the films, said he felt growing pressure as the series progressed. "The fact that its' the fourth book, the fourth book is so many people's favourite, so we felt an even greater responsibility than we have done before. There was the scene with Voldemort, which in a way the first three have been building towards, so that's a sort of, that's incredibly important to get that right. And then I suppose the other, the main sort of pressure is the fact that there is so much...the film is expecting to get better and better now, so if we had a fantastic third film and the forth hadn't been as good, then people would have lost interest. And we really need people to keep interested and excited about the films. And I think we have done, I think the fourth is better, I think they are just getting better and better as films. And so I mean, I think that people are really going to like this," the 16-year-old told Reuters. As well as duelling with Voldemort, Potter faces the equally daunting task of impressing his teenage crush. "When I see that in the film, I think I look quite attractive. So, in real life I tend to ask for orange juice, apple juice, some kind of fruit based beverage and just then take a gulp, see a girl and huhuh...it has worked wonders for me," he commented on one of the less impressing scenes.

ITN Source | October 26, 2005

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