Why Chris Columbus Didn't Direct Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban

When the first "Harry Potter" film released in 2001, director Chris Columbus, then best known for "Home Alone," introduced the word to Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger and placed them in the wizarding world beloved by fans of the book series. So why did Columbus direct the first movie, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (or "Philosopher's Stone" if you're outside of the United States), follow it up with "Chamber of Secrets," and then leave the franchise as a director? Put simply, the guy was really tired.

In a retrospective with The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 celebrating 20 years of the "Harry Potter" film franchise, Columbus explained that both "Sorcerer's Stone" and "Chamber of Secrets" had incredibly arduous shooting schedules. "'Sorcerer's Stone' took 160 days of shooting, which is ridiculously long," Columbus recalled. "And then, immediately after we stopped shooting, we started shooting 'Chamber of Secrets,' which was another 160 days. That's roughly 320 days — not counting second unit — back-to-back shooting." Unsurprisingly, Columbus shared that he "could barely speak" and was "emotionally and physically exhausted" after making the two films.

Just to make matters worse, Columbus then had an astounding realization: filming "Harry Potter" meant he would constantly be away from his family at important times. "I wasn't seeing my kids, who were young at the time, growing up," he said. "I was missing dinners with them. I thought, 'I can't do another six, seven, eight years of this. My kids will grow up and I'll never get to know them." He stepped aside, and a different director took on the following installment, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" ... though Columbus did stick around in a limited capacity.

Alfonso Cuarón — who was known for films like "Y tu mamá también" and the film adaptation of "A Little Princess" at that point in time — came on board to direct "Prisoner of Azkaban," and Chris Columbus remained as a producer. "As a producer, I don't have to be there all the time," Columbus explained. "I can be on the set a few hours a day. I can sit in on certain visual effects meetings, but it means I can get home in time for dinner, to see my kids in the morning to go to school. And by the time 'Azkaban' ended, my family was ready to come back to the States. They missed their friends, and so it felt like the logical time to say goodbye."

Nowadays, Cuarón is known for, yes, directing "Prisoner of Azkaban" — but a few years after that hit theaters, he released his grim yet gripping dystopian film "Children of Men," following that years later with 2013's space drama "Gravity," which earned the Mexican-born filmmaker an Academy Award for Best Director. In 2018, Cuarón directed the deeply personal Spanish-language film "Roma," which scored a best picture nomination at the Oscars and won two more trophies for Cuarón himself (Best Director once again and Best Cinematography). As far as his influence on "Harry Potter" goes, though, it's not an understatement to say that the darker and more stylized tone set by Cuarón went on to set the standard for the rest of the film franchise.

To be fair, the tone of "Harry Potter" sort of automatically gets darker after "Chamber of Secrets," considering that, in "Prisoner of Azkaban," you find out that a convicted murderer named Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) appears to be hunting Harry; the resolution is actually even weirder than that largely because it turns out that Ron's pet rat is a wizard who happens to be an Animagus and who's the real murderer in question. (That would be Peter Pettigrew, played by Timothy Spall). Then, in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," it seems like just another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry — albeit one where someone is, as usual, out to get Harry — until Robert Pattinson's handsome Hufflepuff champion Cedric Diggory is murdered in cold blood by Pettigrew and a soon-to-be reanimated Voldemort. Things do not get more light-hearted from there.

This is all to say that Mike Newell and David Yates, who took over after Alfonso Cuarón departed the franchise — Newell helmed "Goblet of Fire" while Yates took on "Order of the Phoenix," "Half-Blood Prince," and both parts of "Deathly Hallows" — had a great tone set for them by Cuarón on "Prisoner of Azkaban." The award-winning director ensured that the "Harry Potter" series would get more adult and dark as it went on thanks to his work on "Prisoner of Azkaban." If you want to see the progression, all of the films are streaming on Peacock now.