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The Harry Potter phenomenon needs no introduction . . . and David Heyman, the producer behind the eight film adaptations of J K Rowling's bestselling series, the last of which hit cinemas in July (and, at close to $1.5bn worldwide, went on to become the third highest-grossing film of all time behind "Titanic” and "Avatar”) describes the experience as "a gift”.
"It's an absolute gift to make films for such an enthusiastic audience. I think the success of the books to a certain degree helped, because they bought such a loyal fanbase, but of course it also bought countless numbers of people who had their own imaginings of the characters and the settings, so with each film correspondence would arrive on my desk, either saying: "great, we loved it” or "why did you change this or that?”
Moving back to London after a production career in Hollywood, in 1997 Heyman set up his production company Heyday Films with a deal in place with Warner Bros "where they paid for my offices in exchange for first look at whatever I came up with”.
Having first read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone at manuscript stage, Heyman explains that the filming process "began the best way. We didn't start with any sense of the phenomenon it would become and the approach I took during the adaptation process did not differ much between the first film and the last. What we did change was that in the first two films we were more literally faithful, but as the films developed we became more true to the spirit of the books—as the books grew longer, we had to make choices and edit things out.”
Heyman says that his relationship with the world's most famous wizard began because he instantly felt emotionally connected to the first book: "I love to read, it is where it all begins. I had just got back to London but I didn't have the wealth of relationships that I do now and so having a piece of material like a book enabled me to meet certain people that I might not have been able to do otherwise. Books also gave me something concrete to look at, as opposed to an amorphous idea, when you've got six thousand miles separating you (from Warner Bros in Hollywood) it gave me something concrete.”
Adapt and thrive
Although not working exclusively on film adaptations, Heyman has subsequently made a career of bringing books to the big screen: John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Black Swan); Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (Gollancz); and Danny Wallace's Yes Man (Ebury). Still in its early days is an adaptation of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Jonathan Cape). Reportedly, he is also in negotiations to lead the adaptation of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus (Harvill Secker).
So what is it about books as starting material that he loves so much? "I think that with certain books the characters are inevitably a lot richer—well it depends on which book I suppose—but the stories are more evolved and nuanced than they are in other forms, or with original ideas. I love to read so I thought why not do that which you love.”
He explains that not all great books make great films and that, conversely, some not-so-great books can make great films. In an industry governed by the search for the next big thing, it is important for Heyman to have a good relationship with authors, agents and publishers.
"Because it is so competitive, most certainly for new material, you want to try and get things as early as possible. Often, by the time the book has been published the film rights have been sold. Sometimes the time that is necessary to decide if something is a film or not is lost because everyone is hunting something down (but) clearly the key is to find a good [screen] writer and of course a good director to adapt.”
As to what dream project he would like to do next: "I'd love to get Curious Incident going. I'm waiting, oh so patiently, for Steve Kloves to deliver the script, but he's been a bit tied up with Potter (Kloves was the screenwriter for all eight films). I hope we're inching closer and I'm going out to California to see how far away we are.”
Heyman says that he can still take off his producer's hat and read for pleasure, but that in the past few years: "What I think may have shifted is that there is so much filmed entertainment, be it for television, the internet or film, and inevitably as authors are affected by their environment, or responding to their environment, just as they are creating one, some of that seeps into the writing of some writers.”
He adds: "I think there probably are some writers who are more cine-literate than in the past and there are many who write, thankfully, in a very un-cinematic way. What's also the case is that the market for books into films has increased and the awareness of the possibility of a book being turned into a film is much greater than it used to be. I think there are some people that write books with the idea that they maybe will become films and I think that is a pity.”