Los Angeles: Award-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg doesn’t regret turning down Harry Potter.
The 76-year-old director was asked to direct Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first movie in the wizardry franchise based on J K Rowling’s novels, but explained that he snubbed the movie as he wanted to spend time with his family rather than on a film set.
“The personal meaning about (how the conflict between) art and family will tear you in half happened to me later, after I had already established myself as a filmmaker, as a working director,” Spielberg, who shares seven children with ex-wife Amy Irving and his current spouse Kate Capshaw, told fellow filmmaker S S Rajamouli, reports showbiz.com.
“Kate and I started raising a family and we started having children. The choice I had to make in taking a job that would move me to another country for four of five months where I wouldn’t see my family every day.”
Spielberg explained that Harry Potter was just one of several projects that he turned down for family reasons.
The ‘Indiana Jones’ filmmaker said: “There were several films I chose not to make. I chose to turn down the first ‘Harry Potter’ to basically spend the next year and a half with my family, my young kids growing up. So I’d sacrificed a great franchise, which today looking back I’m very happy to have done, to be with my family.”
Spielberg previously explained that he didn’t feel ready to make an “all-kids movie” with the project, which was ultimately directed by Chris Columbus.