Steven Spielberg Abandoned The First Harry Potter Movie To Make A Sci-Fi Cult Classic

There was once a time when you could discuss the "Harry Potter" franchise without your gut clenching up. Before creator J.K. Rowling burned away her goodwill by churning out the stodgy "Fantastic Beasts" prequel movies, announcing pointless (if not downright stupefying) retcons to the saga of The Boy Who Lived, and making anti-trans comments left and right, the world was firmly gripped by Pottermania. Specifically, back in the late 1990s, Wizarding World fans were abuzz to learn that none other than Steven Spielberg would be adapting Rowling's first "Harry Potter" book for the big screen (with either the Sorcerer's Stone or Philosopher's Stone serving as the film's conflict-driving MacGuffin, depending on whether you hang your hat in the U.S. or UK).

Obviously, that didn't happen, and Spielberg has made it clear he's happy that it didn't on more than one occasion. Speaking with TCM to promote his return to the sci-fi genre with his alien flick "Disclosure Day," the renowned director once again touched on his decision to forgo taking a trip to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The reason being? As Spielberg told it this time, he had wanted to keep his promise to his old chum, the late Stanley Kubrick, to direct the latter's long-developing project, "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." As he recalled:

"After Stanley's death, I was at the funeral at his home. [Stanley Kubrick's wife] Christiane Kubrick and Jan Harlan, her brother, approached me about taking over from Stanley, as Stanley had intended, and directing the movie."

That much doesn't come as a surprise, seeing as "A.I." opened theatrically a smidge under five months before Harry and his pals made the leap to live-action. Interestingly, however, it would seem that old Stevie boy was further along on his "Harry Potter" adaptation that he'd previously indicated.

A movie about an unusual boy who goes on a fantastical and often dangerous adventure with a bear? That's not a wry joke about Harry Potter's shaggy half-giant buddy Rubeus Hagrid, it's a description of "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" in the broadest terms imaginable. But that aside, you couldn't ask for two movies as worlds apart as Steven Spielberg's cult sci-fi flick and the first "Harry Potter" feature, as was eventually directed by Spielberg's "Gremlins" and "The Goonies" collaborator Chris Columbus.

Rest assured, "A.I." is just as weird and fascinating now as it was when it first bowed in theaters 25 years ago. If anything, the masses' appreciation for the film has grown with time, seeing as we now know it was Stanley Kubrick who was apparently behind its more Spielbergian sentimental elements, whereas Spielberg himself may have come up with the darker and disturbing aspects that one would've otherwise been inclined to attribute to the director of "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Shining." That must have been quite a change of pace from Spielberg's time playing in the far more whimsical and kid-friendly Wizarding World. As the filmmaker told TCM:

"I actually walked away from 'Harry Potter,' which I was scheduled to direct as my next movie. I gave it up. It was going to be a huge movie because the book already was a runaway cultural phenomenon. I gave that up to essentially do 'A.I.'"

"A.I." would itself kick off a string of ambitious, deeply personal, and sometimes outright strange Spielberg movies in the early 2000s, ranging all the way from "Minority Report" to "Catch Me If You Can" and "Munich." I think I speak for many folks when I say he made the right choice.