Spielberg originally wanted Harry Potter to go animated

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Steven Spielberg was originally approached by Warner Bros president Alan Horn to adapt the best-selling novels for Hollywood. According to The Press Association, the Close Encounters of the Third Kind director to wanted to turn the wizard’s tale into an animated franchise in the Pixar-style.


Courtesy: Press Association, 2010



"I did think it would be worthwhile for Steven Spielberg to direct, we offered it to him - but one of the notions of Dreamworks' and Steven's was, 'Let's combine a couple of the books, let's make it animated,' and that was because of the [visual effects and] Pixar had demonstrated that animated movies could be extremely successful," Alan told the Los Angeles Times. "Because of the wizardry involved, they were very effects-laden. So I don't blame them. But I did not want to combine the movie and I wanted it to be live action." [sic]

Instead, Spielberg took on Warner's 2001 sci-fi film AI: Artificial Intelligence, while the Hogwarts post fell to Home Alone director Chris Columbus.