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Check This Out: Harry Potter Directors - By the Numbers

by Alex Billington
July 21, 2009
Source: MovieFill.com

A few weeks back we featured a really cool box office graph created by Jeff Appelbaum called Michael Bay: By the Numbers. Jeff recently whipped up another impressive graph, this time looking at the Harry Potter movies. This time he presents Harry Potter Directors: By the Numbers (via MovieFill.com) and does a comparison of the four various directors who have directed Harry Potter movies. Not only does he look at their history and the impact of Harry Potter on their career, but also how the budgets of each compare (and their eventual box office performance). I've been given me permission to post this graph in full seen below.

Harry Potter Directors: By the Numbers

A few of the interesting things to note: 1) The next movie made by the original three directors following Harry Potter all ended up as box office bombs. That or they just wanted to go indie and weren't expecting to make a lot of money, which means this graph might be a bit deceptive. 2) David Yates is off to a great start and is doing very well considering he had only directed TV movies before Harry Potter. 3) Chris Columbus is the only original director (so far) who has had a very successful career besides Harry Potter. Although I will say that Alfonso Cuarón is a great director, even though his other movies didn't make a lot of money.

Filed under Cool Stuff, Feat, Opinions

From around the web:

Bryan

Cuaron is soo underrated. By far directed the BEST Harry Potter out of them all. He WILL win an Oscar sometime in the future, all of his work is consistently excellent, unlike the other Potter directors who have had many hits and misses.
http://thepaniclift@yahoo.com James

definatly wouldnt consider children of men a 'bomb'
http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

#2 - It only made $35.5 million on a $76 million budget... That's pretty rough. Although I do think it's one of the great sci-fi movies ever made.
scotty

I think Alfonso Cuarón is one of the main reasons the franchise is going so will at this point. the 1st film got a massive box office but disappointed the fans (in my view), the 2nd disappointed further (again in my view). So by the time we get to the 3rd the audience has shrunk due to the previous films. its not until people realize that its a really good movie that they start coming back and give the franchise a new chance. not to suggest the next films have been so successful purely because of Cuarón the have been good films and kept the audience there. I just feel that if the 3rd had been poor the audience wouldn't of come back the way it did for the next ones. if this all makes sense.
?????

Totally agree alex.
Dreckent

Cuaron why did you leave!!!!
http://movies.iconocritic.com peloquin

Children of Men was phenomenal...and Azkaban still sits atop all the other Potter flicks. Too bad he's not pulling in the money like some of the others.
http://thepaniclift@yahoo.com James

ok if you put it that way i guess it is..hehe. figured it had done better since it won an oscar (right?) but agreed, it is one of the best of the genre, and one my personal favorites =)
http://www.pikaflash.com Zap

i liked the first 3 Potter Movies (Cuaron's being the best), but i haven't liked the rest, and yes it's true, i've watched them hoping something better and ended up dissapointed
Mario

Actually "Little Princess" is better than a couple of Potter films (judging by the type of film they are), kinda sad to see only 10 million worldwide gross for that one.
d1rEct

Alfonso Cuaron, made the first good Harry Potter. After that I think the studio made good decisions in terms of directors (David Yates is a standout to), Even though I'm not much of a fan of Harry Potter at all. I consider the first two films among the worst films ever made.
Dan

Scotty, you're a fool! Cuaron was alright but Columbus stuck more to the books than any of the other directors. If you actually were an avid reader, you'd see the brilliance in his work. Yates destroyed the movies. The acting got choppier, things got rushed, and there was so many scenes getting mangled and thrown around. And of the other 3 directors would of shone way more if they had directed them.
Betsya

I'm gonna have to somewhat agree with Dan on this. Cuaron's film might've been good as a film, but as a fan of the books--Prisoner of Azkaban being my favorite--there were just so many things wrong with it that I couldn't overlook.
SlashBeast

Cuaron ruined the franchise. Columbus' movies resembled the books, which is why most people went to see the movies in the first place. Not so coincidentaly, Cuaron's film is the lowest grossing in the entire series. He completely butchered Prisoner of Azkaban. As an adaptation it`s an utter failure, as a cinematic entity unto itself it suffers because it simply doesn’t make sense. It`s overly condensed, massive chunks are left out which creates a ton of plot holes (compounding on a time travel plot which always creates plot holes), and there`s jarring continuity errors (Movie Mistakes currently has it ranked 3rd for most goofs). He cut away almost every important aspect of the novel but thought that shrunken heads were a more important addition. Cuaron set the series on the wrong path. The movies now lack magic, wonder, accuracy to the source - all in an attempt to imitate Cuaron's failure of a film. Colombus had it right, Cuaron is a hack.
Creature

shut it fools, the first 2 harry potters are the worst. the first movie. "Harry Potter and the (Sourcerers Stone)" SHOULD have been like JK Rowling had it. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. i like harry potter 7(part 1) the most, then harry 4,harry 5, harry 3 and i hated 6.. it was so dark and had no fun parts in it. hard to watch and like. I LOVED harry 6 the book. best book written... but the movie is crap. 1, and 2 are hard to watch. never did like them
SlashBeast

^ Shut your mouth you product of incest. Thanks to Cuaron, Harry still doesn't know the Marauders Map he so treasures was made by his father and his friends. He's also clueless as to why his patronus is a stag, because someone didn't think it was important to tell him that James was an animagus. Cuaron ruined the best HP book by not giving due consideration to the most important parts. But hey, it's all okay, we still got some talking shrunken heads. Columbus had it right.
Glass

Half Blood Prince was pathetic. It had such amazing potential for drama but it was reduced to teenage soap opera. There was such a superb chance to show the evolution of Voldemort and his origins but the director glosses it over for the teenage romance. The film couldn't even pause to show Dumbledore's death properly. David Yates just puts random parts from the book into the film and hopes it works. The Yates films have some of the most unimaginative camerawork I've ever seen in a fantasy film.