MovieChat Forums > David Yates Discussion > does he really have to direct every Harr...

does he really have to direct every Harry Potter related film now?


He's essentially the John Glen of the Harry Potter series. Competent and reliable enough to turn in a watchable film, but largely lacking in vision and creativity.

Despite the massive budgets he gets, his films always end up just feeling like well-produced TV movies, with no sense of scale or grandness present. The best example of this is with the second Deathly Hallows, where Yates took what was supposed be an epic, action-packed, showstopping finale to the Harry Potter series and turned it into just another adventure revolving around Harry, Ron, and Hermione, with little of the fireworks needed to make it feel like the biggest of the lot.

His approach to storytelling always feels as though he's still working from the same mindset he had while working on television, that of swift narrative pacing, efficiency, and minimal spectacle to counteract the micro-sized budgets and limited runtime allowance. Difference is, Harry Potter isn't some low-budget BBC production that is only allowed to go up to 90 minutes max. He has all the resources in the world to help him tell the story in the exact way it needs to be told and yet, he always opts for the driest, most unimpressive style imaginable.

The guy's done seven of these films now. Can we please get someone else?

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My guess is the studio or most likely Rowling wants that '80s childrens BBC fantasy drama production' style feel for the Potter movies. I haven't seen a single Potter film in its entirety but I think they they started off with like a Spielberg type feel with the 2 Columbus films (Spielberg nearly directed 1st one) fantasy magic movies with that chocolate box look of England/london, then they expremented with the Gravity guy for the 3rd one, then finally went 'full English' with the Four Weddings dude (who I guess only wanted to do one) which I guess set it up for the BBC guy who they settled with for the rest (even FB)..and hes stayed on as its a good gig and isn't an 'auteur' who wants to go off and do other stuff. and the studio is more than happy with the success of each film, and Rowling likes the more 'Narnia/Box of Delights BBC production' look which might be what she originally envisioned

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