Scheduling GoF

[GulPlum]

Nia wrote:

>Question:
>Since it will only take about nine months or so to film PoA, and the
>release date isn't until June, 2004, does anyone know if they plan to
>start filming GoF in late 2003, early 2004 or wait until after PoA is
>released?  That will be about an 8-month hiatus--a bit long, don't
>you think?

PoA might be able to be on a shorter shooting schedule: a big problem with 
making the first two movies (well documented and commented upon ad nauseam) 
is that the bulk of the filming was done during school term time, which 
meant that at least half of each day had to be devoted to school work, on 
top of limitations on how many hours per day the kids could be on set at all.

Come 23rd July, most legal limitations are off: Dan will be 14 and the 
school year will have ended. Under British law, kids aged 14 and over can 
spend their summer holidays working as many hours as they wish. This will 
presumably make life on set a lot easier for all involved, and if they can 
all get their act together, it's not impossible that they could finish 
principal photography by the beginning of the new school year in 
mid-September.

That would give the SFX teams about 9 months to do their stuff. Off the top 
of my head, that means 3 Quidditch matches (I sincerely hope they keep all 
3 in!); inflating Marge, the morphs for the Boggart, Lupin, Peter and 
Sirius are fairly easy nowadays, as are the (presumably) CGI Patronus and 
animated Marauder's Map. The biggie will be Buckbeak, which I would expect 
will be done the way the Basilisk was in CoS, with a combination of 
modelwork and CGI.

Re. scheduling GoF, though... I suspect that Columbus et al were being 
honest in everything they said when CoS came out: Kloves has probably just 
been signed to do the screenplay (well, 3 months ago, Columbus said that 
negotiations were underway so I assume they've been concluded) and the rest 
is in the air.

Furthermore, considering the rumours Columbus himself fuelled at PS/SS time 
that GoF could be done as two movies, and as it won't be possible to decide 
if they can condense the book into one movie until Kloves has done a first 
draft of the script, any kind of scheduling talk before he's done that is 
groundless speculation.

The doubts expressed about whether or not Dan wants to be involved probably 
won't be resolved until PoA is well underway (if not over), and that's 
going to be another lynch pin for scheduling. If he is involved, his 
parents will continue to want filming to have minimal impact on his 
schooling, and if not, there's obviously going to be a huge search for a 
replacement...

Although nothing's been announced, I would expect that WB will be aiming 
for a November 2005 release for GoF. November 2004 is completely out of the 
question for miriad reasons, and I expect they'll want to return to a 
pre-Christmas release to maximise merchandising, especially as there'll be 
no LOTR movie to compete for both cinema tickets and toys!

With 18 months between releases, there's no point in going into filming GoF 
straight away, although on the other hand, it might make sense to launch 
into it during the summer holidays.

If they launch into making GoF shortly after PoA comes out, and maximise 
use of next year's summer holidays, they could conceivably have principal 
photography done by Christmas (if GoF is done as one movie) or perhaps by 
Easter if it's done as two. But as I said at the top, most scheduling 
decisions depend on the script and Dan's intentions. Until these have been 
cleared up, any speculation is frankly pointless.