Columbus didn’t just direct the first film. He also helmed Chamber Of Secrets, produced Prisoner Of Azkaban, and had a large hand in dreaming up much of the visual aesthetic we associate with the wizarding world today. So much so, in fact, that the first look photos of HBO’s new Harry Potter series looks pretty damn close to the film franchise he launched over two decades ago. Even Columbus said he had a “deja vu” moment seeing a photo of Nick Frost as Hagrid and Dominic McLaughlin as Harry shooting in London. “Because it was exactly where we were 20 years ago!” he said. “We had to shoot it on a Sunday with Dan (Radcliffe) and Martin Bayfield, who stood in for Robbie Coltrane.”
Siill, Columbus doesn’t resent the fact that new directors are taking a stab at the series. “The great thing about it is that with the first and second and third book, we wanted to do it all. We wanted to bring all of that onto the screen, and we didn’t have the opportunity,” he said. “So for me, it’s an opportunity to bring all those scenes to life.” The show has promised a more in-depth look at the wizarding world, with only one book covered each season.
Still, despite any latent jealousy he may feel toward the filmmakers who get to put Peeves and other cutting room floor characters on screen, Columbus is definitively done with the wizarding world. “I’ve done it, you saw my version,” he said. “There’s nothing left for me to do in the world of Potter.”
He’s not the only former Hogwarts denizen to abdicate the role. Harry Potter himself also wants nothing to do with it. “My understanding is that they’re trying to very much start fresh and I’m sure whoever is making them will want to make their own mark on it and probably not want to have to figure out how to get old Harry to cameo in this somewhere,” Daniel Radcliffe said of the show back in 2023. “I do wish them, obviously, all the luck in the world and I’m very excited to have that torch passed. But I don’t think it needs me to physically pass it.”
