Alfonso Cuarón explains why he refused to direct a Bond film after having dinner with Joel Coen

Alfonso Cuarón angered the audience at the Marrakech Film Festival during a lengthy conversation during which he revealed that he had never read a Harry Potter book before filming Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Death. “Azkaban”. He also remembers turning down an offer to film a James Bond film after having dinner with filmmaker Joel Coen.

Asked by Moroccan directors Alaa Eddine Aljem and Talal Selhami on how he managed to put his personal mark on the third “Harry Potter” film which, the animators pointed out, is considered by many fans as the best part of the candidly, Cuarón responded that he basically had to pay the bills.

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“I had written ‘Children of Men’ and no one wanted to do it. I was unemployed. I was going to have a child,” Cuarón explained. “This movie was offered to me and I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t know anything about Harry Potter.”

Then, once Cuarón read the books, he thought, “There’s something good here!” I’ll try.

Cuarón noted that “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” turned out to be “the best experience making a film that I’ve ever had.” I learned like crazy. It was a crash course in visual effects. It was a really pleasant experience. And another big consequence of this experience is that right after “Harry Potter”, Warner Bros. wanted to make “Children of Men”.

Cuarón added that “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” also gave him the visual effects tools to solve problems he had never been able to solve before.

But the pleasure of making this blockbuster did not prevent him from refusing another similar opportunity.

“A long time ago I was offered a Bond film,” he revealed. “And I said, ‘Yeah, cool. Maybe Bond. I’m going to make one. And then when the process started and I was going to shoot all the dialogue and everything else, there was a (separate) crew doing all the action scenes. It was a bit very weird.

The reason he didn’t do it? “I was confused about doing it,” Cuarón said. “I had dinner with Joel Coen and I said, ‘Joel, what do you think of Bond?’ And he said, “Oh cool, I like Bond.” I said, “Would you do a Bond film?” ” According to Cuarón, Coen responded, “It probably falls into the category of a movie I want to watch but don’t. »

Cuarón continued: “There I learned the lesson that certain films I prefer to watch and not do.”

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