Harry Potter Director Promises His Cut Includes Fan-Favorite Character
The director's cut of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone will have an appearance by a fan-favorite character who wasn't in the original
This article is more than 2 years old
These days it seems like directors are more than itching to get their own cuts of movies out there to the masses. Maybe the studio screwed things up, maybe the original vision was lost, or maybe good stuff was just left on the cutting room floor. Whatever the reason, we are seeing more of these lately and the newest one could be from Chris Columbus who is itching to put out a director’s cut of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to the masses. And the director has said that if they do it will include one of the fans’ favorite characters from the series who never got the big-screen treatment.
In an interview with The Wrap (via Collider), Columbus said that there is a three-hour director’s cut of the first Harry Potter movie out there that he would like to see released. In the interview, Columbus said that originally when the first movie was screened for parents, the latter complained that the length was going to be a bit too much for their younger kids. That being the case, Columbus and company trimmed about 30 minutes off and with that had to remove an appearance from Peeves. While he was a fun character, it ended up that he wasn’t necessarily integral to the overall story.
For such a broad and sweeping world, Peeves was noticeably absent from the Harry Potter film series when it was all said and done. The poltergeist haunts Hogwarts Castle and in the books is often causing all sorts of mischief around the grounds. Apparently, Rik Mayall was who played Peeves in the movie version but never made it to the final cut. The director’s cut would cure this and add in a number of other omitted scenes as well. Peeves has a consistent, but minor role in the book series. He appears throughout the seven-book run though is rarely crucial to any specific plot point. He’s mostly there to make things difficult for students, professors, and caretakers alike.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter film which was released all the back in 2001. The timing of this has brought the original movie and series back into the limelight and there are some big plans around celebrating the original release. It was recently announced that Columbus would be joined by franchise stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and others for a reunion special in a couple of months. That’s going to be the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts which will air on HBO Max on January 1, 2022. It will feature interviews, scenes, and other pieces of the production which went down two decades ago. That being said, it appears JK Rowling has not been asked to take part.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was, of course, a massive success when it first hit the big screen. Besides ushering in the faces of the franchise for years to come, it also crushed at the box office. The movie earned more than $1 billion all told on its $125 million budget. It paved the way for the rest of the franchise which would go on to be one of the biggest earners in movie history.
