David Fincher Pitched a Dark, Creepy ‘Harry Potter’ Movie That Could Have Been Disastrous

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David Fincher is not the type of director one would automatically think of to bring Harry Potter to the big screen, but the director was at one point in talks with Warner Bros. about doing just that. However, his pitch likely would have ended the franchise before it even began. Hot off the critical acclaim of movies like Se7en and Fight Club, the director was one of many high-profile filmmakers Warner Bros. looked to for the launch of the Harry Potter franchise. Other names included Steven Spielberg, M. Night Shyamalan, Ivan Reitman, and Terry Gilliam, to name a few. Fincher is best known for psychological thrillers like Zodiac, Gone Girl, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so it isn’t shocking to find out the director had a very different take on the material.

Speaking with Variety, Fincher revealed that he met with Warner Bros. about directing the first film in the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Fincher wanted to do something akin to the 1987 comedy Withnail and I, which, funnily enough, stars actor Richard Griffiths, who played Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter films. Warner Bros. was not interested in Fincher’s take on the material; instead, it opted for something more traditional and went with director Chris Columbus. Fincher said:

“I was asked to come in and talk to them about how I would do ‘Harry Potter,’ I remember saying, ‘I just don’t want to do the clean Hollywood version of it. I want to do something that looks a lot more like ‘Withnail and I,’ and I want it to be kind of creepy.’ They were like, ‘We want Thom Browne schooldays by way of ‘Oliver.’’”

Harry Potter was one of many big franchise movies Fincher was offered in the 2000s. He was also considered to direct Spider-Man, but he wanted to skip the origin story and instead do an adaptation of “The Night Gwen Stacy Died.” Fincher was the original director who signed on for Mission: Impossible III before dropping out due to creative differences. In 2010, Fincher announced he would direct a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Disney, which was canceled in 2014. While the director has not been opposed to working in big-budget studio blockbusters, it appears he has never found the right one.

What a David Fincher-Directed ‘Harry Potter’ Could Have Looked Like

Warner Bros.’s decision to go for a more traditional, family-friendly version of Harry Potter under director Chris Columbus, best known for movies like Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, paid off big time as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone grossed $974 million at the worldwide box office and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. As the franchise continued, Warner Bros. experimented with more mature themes as the source material grew darker, bringing in filmmakers like Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, and David Yates to helm subsequent entries in the franchise. The Harry Potter franchise is one of Warner Bros.’s biggest IPs, and it will return to screens as a new TV adaptation.

An edited image of Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter in The Goblet of Fire

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Fincher has become one of the most exciting and critically acclaimed filmmakers, with some of his best films opening the same year as a Harry Potter movie. The Social Network was released the same year as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, while The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opened the same year as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2. While Fincher’s Harry Potter might have been a big hit on the name brand alone, the question is how much that brand goodwill would have carried over into subsequent films. If fans of the books and the general audience didn’t vibe with Fincher’s dour take on the material, it might have doomed future sequels, and the franchise might never have finished. It turned out for the best, as neither Fincher nor Harry Potter needed one another.

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