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Harry PotterIt's the height of Spooky Season, which makes it the perfect time to rewatch some classic haunting films. While you might not think of Harry Potter as Halloween fodder, the third film in the franchise — Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which premiered in 2004 — is often considered the most autumnal, thanks to much of it taking place in the fall and winter.
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So, in honor of Halloween and this being a perfect time of year to rewatch the entire franchise, here are 21 facts about Prisoner of Azkaban you might not have ever known:
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1. Chris Columbus, who directed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, didn't return as director for the third film to preserve his "sanity." However, Columbus stayed on as a producer for the film, while Alfonso Cuarón joined as director.
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"I needed to get out for my own sanity, so I'd be alive for my children at some point," Columbus told the BBC in 2004.
2. Richard Harris, who played Dumbledore in the first two films, died in 2002. While in the hospital before his death, he apparently told Columbus not to recast him.
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"It was an amazing amount of pressure for me," Columbus told the BBC of recasting Dumbledore. "Because the last thing that Richard Harris ever said to me was 'Don't ever ****ing think about recasting me!' That was in his hospital room as I was saying goodbye to him."
3. Michael Gambon took over the role of Dumbledore, starting with Prisoner of Azkaban. So, for the third film, Dumbledore's costumes were overhauled to be less "heavy" and more "hippy" in an effort to differentiate Gambon and Harris's portrayals of the headmaster.
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"Richard was in heavy, heavy costume, he could hardly sit, you know, and I turned up and they put me in two layers of silk, so I played him much lighter — you know, floating around in a pair of slippers, a bit of a hippy," Gambon told the BBC in 2004. "I had a slight Irish accent — because, you know, I am Irish — it sort of just happened. Alfonso asked 'What accent are you using?' and I said 'I'm not sure yet.' So the Irish came out. He said, 'What is that?' I said Irish, and he said he'd never heard it before."
4. Before Gambon was cast, Peter O'Toole was also considered to play Dumbledore but felt it'd be "intrusive" as he was close friends with Harris.
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Columbus told The Wrap in 2021 that he andCuarón met with O'Toole but the actor "felt it was intrusive from an acting point of view so he decided not to do it."
5. Ian McKellen was also considered to take over as Dumbledore, according to a New York Times report from 2023.
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However, the publication reports he "demurred."
6. Kenneth Branagh, who played Gilderoy Lockhart in Chamber of Secrets, was in the running to direct Prisoner of Azkaban.
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A prolific writer, director, and actor, Branagh had already garnered three Oscar nominations at the time, including a Best Director nom for his 1989 film Henry V.(He's since gone on to receive an additional four nominations across acting, directing, writing, and producing categories, including another Best Director nom for his 2021 film Belfast.)
So it'snot surprising that he was considered to direct the third Harry Potter film, but he had some stiff competition. As Total Film reported in their20-year retrospective with Cuarón and longstanding Harry Potterproducer David Heyman in May, Branagh was up against Guillermo del Toro and M. Night Shyamalan, among other directors. Ultimately,Cuarón rose to the top.
7. Cuarón didn't know much about Harry Potter when offered the opportunity to direct.
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Cuarón was fresh off directing the steamy and critically acclaimed filmY tu mamá también when Harry Potter came his way. "I was not very aware of Potter's universe and I was surprised to be offered it, coming from Y tu mamá también," he told Total Film.
8. In fact, Cuarón said his close friend Guillermo del Toro called him "an arrogant asshole" for thinking of passing on the film.
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"I speak often withGuillermo [del Toro], and a couple of days after, I said, 'You know, they offered me this Harry Potter film, but it's really weird they offer me this.' He said, 'Wait, wait, wait, you said you haven't read Harry Potter?' I said, 'don't think it's for me.' In very florid lexicon, in Spanish, he said, 'You are an arrogant asshole,'" Cuaróntold Total Film.
9. Cuarón assigned Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint to write an essay about their character, but not everyone completed it.
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As the longstanding rumor went, each actor ended up mirroring the response their character would likely have had to the assignment. Radcliffe turned in a page, Watson turned in around 16 pages, and Grint didn't do it at all. Grint confirmed the theory to HuffPostin 2016. "It's quite Ron-ish not to do it. I think [Cuarón] kind of appreciated that," he said.
10. Radcliffe once called Cuarón coming on to direct the third film "the best decision that was ever made for the series."
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"Because it just changed how people saw us and it changed the perception of what we were trying to do. 'Oh, they're trying to make something different!'" Radcliffe told HuffPostin 2013.
11. David Thewlis, who first appeared as Remus Lupin in the third film and went on to appear in all subsequent films, was considered to play Professor Quirrell in Sorcerer's Stone.
Warner Brothers / courtesy Everett Collection, Warner Bros / ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
Thewlis revealed this to the Washington Post in 2004.
12. Joining the Harry Potter franchise "saved" Gary Oldman, who first appeared as Sirius Black in Prisoner of Azkaban.
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Oldman saidonTheDrew BarrymoreShowin 2023 that he was newly divorced and raising two boys from his marriage to Donya Fiorentino when he joined the film. He is also the father to a son from his previous marriage to actress Lesley Manville.
"I tell you, the two —Batman andHarry Potter—really they saved me, because it meant that I could do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids," he said.In 2005, Gary Oldman also began appearing as James Gordon in Christopher Nolan's Batman series.
13. Still, Oldman was "intimidated" to join the film, partly because Radcliffe was such a fan of his work.
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"You have the added responsibility of hoping that you live up to that expectation — I didn't want to disappoint him," Oldman told theBBC in 2004.
14. Radcliffe almost fainted while filming the dementor scene in the Forbidden Forest with Oldman.
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"I have to say Dan just focused so hard on a lot of the scenes in this. In one of the scenes that he did, he was so into it that he almost fainted. He was really great," Emma Watson toldIGNin 2004.
In response during the interview, Radcliffe said, "I do this like stupid thing where I forget to breathe properly and I hyperventilate."
15. The rat Grint held throughout much of the movie once peed on him while filming.
Warner Bros / ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
"When we were in Scotland he peed on me. That wasn't really nice," Grint told theBBC in 2004.
16. To film the scene where Sirius takes the form of his dog Animagus and subsequently drags Ron, Grint had a harness strapped to his leg and was pulled by a "big guy in a blue suit."
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"I kicked the camera on my way into it, accidentally," Grint said in an old interview. "I was fine. The camera was a bit broken, but I was fine."
17. Prisoner of Azkaban features the introduction of Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane)'s hippogriff Buckbeak. In the scene where Hagrid introduces the students to Buckbeak, they filmed with a horse standing in for the mythical creature. But that method didn't last long.
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According to a 2004 New York Postarticle, they shot with a robot in subsequent scenes. However, Coltrane told the publication the robot "didn't really work," so most of Buckbeak was ultimately CGI.
18. The name of the prison from which Sirius escaped, Azkaban, is a combination of the name 'Alcatraz' — the infamous San Francisco prison on an island — and the Hebrew word for hell, 'Abbadon.'"
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"I squeezed those words together," Rowling told SFGate in 2019. "The idea of the rock in the middle of the ocean was directly inspired by a visit to Alcatraz."
19. The Marauder's Map designers didn't want the prop to look like a treasure map.
Warner Bros. Pictures / Via youtube.com
In the movie, Harry is given a magical map of Hogwarts from George and Fred Weasley. It was created years ago by Harry's father James Potter and James's friends: Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin.
Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima of the design team MinaLima created the map for the film. "We didn't want it to be aTreasure Island, burnt edges, whimsical in that sense piece," Mina told EW in 2016. "We thought about who would've created this, so these four characters were very cunning and intelligent and crafty in what they were doing with this map. We went back to look at some reference and I found some lovely, I think it was 17th, 18th century illustrations that were completely made out of words and that idea seemed to fit perfectly with what they might have done as these cheeky characters, as students."
20. The scene where George (Oliver Phelps) and Fred (James Phelps) give Harry the map is Oliver's most treasured moment in the entire series.
Warner Bros. Pictures / Via youtube.com
As Oliver told EW in 2018, there are a couple of reasons it's his favorite. "I still remember to this day calling my granddad from the hotel and telling him how it went and everything," Phelps said.His grandfather died before the film was released.
Second, it's the first scene where he got to see and use George's wand. "I remember seeing it and literally just before we started filming, the prop guy gave me the wand and I was looking at this thing and then I just hear, 'Ok, we're rolling.' And I'm like, 'Hang on, hang on, I'm looking at my wand!'" he said.
21. Finally, the map even shows Newt Scamander walking in Hogwarts.
Warner Bros. Pictures / Via youtube.com
While it's unclear if this Easter Egg is intentional or not, it's seriously cool to see that the star of the spin-off franchise Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them sort ofappears in the film.
What'd we miss? Tell us below any of your other favorite Prisoner of Azkaban facts!
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