Original Plans for the HP Movies

[skullkid]

I found this info in an old issue of IN power magazine,this is the articles put into my own words:

when the WB started the project in 2000,the first propsal was a movie BASED on the first 3 books but at the same time , very different.

The beggining of the story didn't sound anything like the books:Harry was a 13 year old American boy who lived with his aunt & uncle , one day he is sent a letter from a magic school in London, he decides to go to London with his best friend , ron and his girlfriend,bailey to look for his parents.

Things they wanted to change

Hermionie was going to be replaced by the character of Bailey ,a popular cheerleader who was harry's girlfriend,she was going to be kidnapped and then rescued in the end.

The main characters were going to be American

the 3 first books were going to be crossed over to make a new story

Official cast list(incomplete)

Haley Joel Osment as harry

Frankie Muniz as Ron

Mara Wilson as Bailey(Hermione)

Rosie O Donnell as Mrs Weasley

Mike Mayers as Snape

Christopher Lee as Dumbledore

John Lithgow as the Evil Dr Quirrel( ????)

???? as Hagrid
and Brody Smith as Dudley


The director's name was kept anonymous

_____________________________________________________________

JK said no to the changes. If they actually made the film like that it would destroy our favourite book series :sad: :sad: :sad:

EDIT:sorry I said official ,it was just the rumoured cast list

[Rien]

I have a feeling the director would have been Alan Smithee. Ugh. The thought of that movie makes my stomach shrivel up into a teeny ball of acid. :D

[Nurika]

Rien's right...ugh! I'm so glad it was made in the UK! It would destory the series! And I thought the current movies were missing some crucial book parts...

Hermione being replaced by a popular cheerleader...that would be awful....

I knew about Rosie O'Donnell wanting to play Mrs. Weasly, but the rest I had no clue!

Thank goodness JK said no! It would have been a disaster!

[Qeomash]

:shrug:
I'd heard that the first ideas were bad, but I didn't know they were THAT bad.

I had heard, however, that Steven Speilburg's (who was first choice as director, from what I head) choice for playing Harry was Haley Joel Osment. WB, however, wanted to keep the movie as British as possible.

[lorna]

and what would the point of calling that travesty
"Harry Potter" have been?

[Fuchsia]

Using the words 'official cast' doesn't help make this plausible or believable. For one thing, people would have heard if it were official.They'd have had to sign on for that.

[marspeach]

I'd heard that they originally wanted the movie to be a crossover of the first three books, but I had no idea it would have been this bad! That's horrible!

[misspadfoot15]

i agree wit lorna... why would they call it Harry Potter...they could make that exact movie and name it something else and i would not even think of it as harry potter...it would just be like another movie!

[remusjlupin1980]

God****. Is that even real?

[Vanilla Dream]

I heard about the whole Hayley Joel Osment thing before but for the rest - WHOA! I'm sure the article might have been a tad far fetched I mean they could have practically put the movie together as their own creation!

[Jinxie Cat]

Dear Lord! Is this real!? That is scary! If they would've done that... I would've refused to see that movie and burned my HP books! Then I'd tell who ever made the movie off! I have a feeling that is real... :scared: Scary! Absolutely scary! I'm glad they didn't ruin HP...

[aragog]

...and everyone is complaining about Columbus being unfaithful to the books? Man alive, that movie idea sounds awful. Good thing some people have a bit of sense at WB.

[Snivelly Snape]

Geez! That would have been one terrible movie!! I hope they weren't truly considering doing that! I'm glad JK put a stop to it. :agree:

[XoticRaven]

Mike Myers as Snape?
he's a good actor, don't get me wrong...but thank god that never happend!

[Llopin]

That's really disturbing. Of all th actors only Christopher Lee is decent in my opinion.

[Dedalus]

I'm pretty sure that isn't true. It just sounds like a quib at what the film would be like if it was "Americanised" (or rather Hollywoodised") that this newspaper has taken seriously, or perhaps invented themselves.

Because the "they" that planned it is non-existant. Warner Bros. don't work on the films themselves, they only provide financially for them. So why would "they", Warner Bros., have planned all this out, when casting, writing and so on are down to different crew, which they wouldn't have hired until they got the rights, which they undoubtely wouldn't have? Plus if J.K. Rowling heard of that proposal (which she would, if it was the first proposal for the film) then she wouldn't have even let them have a second go. And why the sudden change of heart anyway? None of that makes enough sense to be taken seriously.

But if it is true... I'm scared that whoever wrote that idea is working on films and isn't being publically flogged

[dumbleedore]

If all that is true, and I never thought I'd say this, but thank the heavens for Chris Columbus...

[you know who!]

thank the lord this movie was never made i would have died if they made the movie like that!!! what possessed them!!!!

[saz]

If they did that they might as well have called it Jo smith and his trip to london. I knew about the whole thing with Speilberg. If that is ture i swear i will never complain again about CC's daughter been in every scence of the moive ever again!

[rotsiepots]

Erm, I may be rather cynical, but I find this all quite hard to believe. I know there were some rather...interesting suggestions from various directors (including making HP an animated film), but this is all a bit too far-fetched.

Could you, perhaps, post some links or scan the article to verify those names you posted? Why would anyone in their right-mind thing Frankie Muniz was an appropriate choice for Ron?

:rolleyes:

[Cat]

I don't believe that this is real. I think most of it is based on the kind of rumour that started with a joke. I think the joke began when Stephen Spielberg was rumoured to be the director.

Although I do suspect that several people would have loved the three main people to have been American. :rolleyes:

[Mega]

No wonder J.K. has such a thing against American movie companys. If I was J.K. and WB showed me that I would laugh in their face.

[Picko]

You sure this magazine that you saw this in wasn't an 'April' edition. Like several others I'm somewhat cynical about the whole thing, for one it looks like a stereotypical view of what would happen to the movie if it was 'Americanized', secondly to get the rights WB had to give JK unprecendented power over the direction of the movie, which would ensure that such ideas were never seriously contemplated.

[Lord_Chatterley]

Ehm sorry but I think that Frankie Muniz would have ruled as Ron!or maybe it's just me that I hate Rupert...

[remusjlupin1980]

Frankie would be a horrible choice for Ron. For one thing, he's way too old. Plus I don't think he can pass as British.

Haley, however, would've been great as Harry. He has the talent to pull it off but I would think he'd be the type to avoid franchises.

[Cat]

Haley, however, would've been great as Harry. He has the talent to pull it off but I would think he'd be the type to avoid franchises.

The not-looking-in-the-slightest-bit-like-Harry also puts him away from the list of pre-Radcliffe possibilities.

[Mega]

Good think J.K. didn't just leave this in the hands of the WB.

[skullkid]

The info is from the August and September 2000 issues and a special HP edition of the Latin American magazine 'super entretenida' . It also said that those were the plans for the film back in 1999 when the project was kept secret,but JK said no and then came Columbus.

[drowned]

heeh!:rotfl:
that was a great read, I needed a laugh. ;)

[skullkid]

John rhys-davies was going to play hagrid, and Freddie prinze Jr was going to have a role(didn't mention which)
I also found out that the anonymus director was going to be steven kloves.

[saz]

hey can someone please post a link to a website for this if there is one?

[rotsiepots]

Just to extend this topic a bit further (I'm still having trouble believing the original article), I've done a bit of digging and found a few interesting tid-bits.

Gabriel Thomson was strongly rumoured to play Harry Potter. So much so, that Ain't It Cool news reported an "inside scoop" on the subject and claimed that he'd already signed. Obviously he hadn't and AICN was wrong (shock, horror!). Here's a picture of Thomson:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/885000/images/_886228_thomson150.jpg

Other than that, Liam Aiken was also rumoured at one point to be up for the role of Harry. You can see his picture here (http://www.risingstar.to/la19981225g.jpg).

Interesting, eh?

[Hagrid]

dang. i am so glad that did not happen. if they di that, i would ask for my money back, write insulting letteres to the company, and then i would scream. ( not all liuterally). and how could they make all three into one movie? if they included only the important stuff, it would be like at least 10 hours long! eesh!

[jasper]

No, wait. That story line looks like a spoof. I think they could really do it, not as "the" Harry Potter movie, but as a mock the series type thing. It could be fun with the right sense of humor.

[edam]

sounds like a joke to me... good god, mayers as snape?? wtf. it's just to bizar. and rossie o donnel!? oh my god it's just to much.

[remusjlupin1980]

Rosie O'Donnell once said she'd love to play Mrs. Weasley during her interview with J.K. Rowling. Haley Joel Osment was rumored to be considered for the role of Harry by Steven Spielberg (who opted to direct him in A.I. Artificial Intelligence instead). The rest are just ludicrous.

[Sirius83]

:lol: Nice joke...no really, nice joke. Honestly, for all the changes that can be made, this one is just waaaaaay too off the mark to even consider as being true for a second.

[MoonyX]

wtf is up with that? oh my.. If that ever did happen I just might have hurt something.. Well, it's certainly interesting to say the least. It's a spoof right? I hope.

I do remember Haley Joel Osment expressing interest in becoming Harry Potter. Daniel Radcliffe looks and acts more like Harry though. Haley may be a better actor but he's not British. And as much as I like Haley, I would never want to watch him play Harry Potter. Maybe it's just me.

[Lord_Chatterley]

That Gabriel Thomson starred with Haley Joel Osment in A.I.(I think!)
But he's so....so....fake,and he was in Alfonso Cuaron's Great Expectations!coincidence!
Liam Aiken looks always like a 5-year-old kid even though he should be twelve

[Doggy]

He's not 5...?

I don't know if I should believe it or not, but I'm very greatful it didn't happen. It would have completely destroyed the books - especially making everything and everyone American (nothing against Americans, but if it starts British it should stay British).

[girl_wizardry]

Oh my god..the HORROR..the plot will totally be NOT Harry Potter but like...sum American teenybopper high school flicks! *shudders at the thought*....I find this really hard to believe...it is for real?!

[remusjlupin1980]

You're probably confusing Gabriel Thomson with Jeremy James Kissner. He was in A.I. and Great Expectations. Gabriel Thomson was in Enemy at the Gates though.

[danfan89]

I wouldn't have even watched it. It would become another stupid americanized stereotypical teen movie, and I wouldn't want that. Not dissing american movies, of course, but all I'm saying is I'm glad they kept it the way it is.

[Lord_Chatterley]

You're probably confusing Gabriel Thomson with Jeremy James Kissner. He was in A.I. and Great Expectations. Gabriel Thomson was in Enemy at the Gates though.

No! :rolleyes: if you visit a gabriel thomson site you'll see in his filmography "Great Expecatations"

[Fantasy Moon]

I have to agree with everyone else in saying that it would have been a horrible movie if the original plans had went through. Who would have thought a story could have been butchered that much?

[ArmachiA]

I read a simuliar article like this one a VERY long time ago. It didn't give a cast list though, but it pretty much said that they wanted to make it a combination of the books and have Harry be American. I can't for the life of me remember where I read it. I would swear it was Entertainment Weekly, but I looked and the article isn't on the webisite. Anyway, I think most of this is true... though I highly doubt the cast list was "Official", it was probably just speculatory because of all of the names that were being thrown around at the time.

[remusjlupin1980]

No! :rolleyes: if you visit a gabriel thomson site you'll see in his filmography "Great Expecatations"

Nope. That's the 1999 made-for-TV version of Great Expectations. Alfonso Cuaron directed the 1998 theatrical version of Great Expectations with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow.

[DRxD]

The idea makes me wanna vomit. Nooo.

[Cammie]

Haley Joel Osment? Aaaagggggghhhhh! Seriously, though, that's the first person who came to my mind as a candidate for Harry when I heard talk of an American version for the movies. Scary. Thank God they went British.

[SwtPea484]

i heard some people said haley joel osment was considered for harry, but later found out that he was never approached about it.

all i can say is eew, and thank the lord.

and i'm not bashing hollywood, USA but they do have a tendency to make things cheesey and redo the same teen flicks over and over again.

i love my country but the idea for that movie sounds like an abominaton.
lately, i've only been paying attention to more foreign made films because they tend to have 1)better actors, 2)more imaginative plot lines.

if this had been an american movie for all we know fred and george could have been changed to fannie and georgia, and been casted by the olsen twins...did anyone else seen them on the cover of rolling stone?
....creepy man.

[Prof Dippet]

Wasn't Robin Williams supposed to play Mr. Weasly? And I heard that they wrote in a cameo appearance for self-proclaimed Harry Potter fan Drew Barrymore

[VIETgrlTerifa]

love my country but the idea for that movie sounds like an abominaton.
lately, i've only been paying attention to more foreign made films because they tend to have 1)better actors, 2)more imaginative plot lines.


I'm sure you could find really bad foreign films too. I don't think it's fair to just single out bad movie ideas as being American. I love foreign films too, but just because a film is from another country does not mean it is automatically better than American ones. In every big movie industry, you are going to get a lot of trash with a few great movies. The more money the industry makes and the bigger it gets, the more dumb movies are made. That's just a result of the structure of the studio system, and its universal.

Don't get me wrong, this idea is horrible, but I think it was just an idea that was brought up and I'm sure it was struck down easily.

[Dagmar]

I had read somewhere that Tim Roth was originally offered the role of Snape, but turned it down.