Spielberg 'wanted animated Potter'

Steven Spielberg wanted to make the Harry Potter franchise into an animated series, it has been reported.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Spielberg was offered the chance by Warner Bros to direct the Harry Potter films just after the books had become a worldwide phenomenon.

"I did think it would be worthwhile for Steven Spielberg to direct," Warner Bros president Alan Horn said. "We offered it to him."

However, Spielberg envisioned the series as being animated, a vision that was not shared by Horn.

He explained: "One of the notions of Steven’s was, 'Let’s combine a couple of the books, let’s make it animated', and that was because of the [visual effects and] Pixar had demonstrated that animated movies could be extremely successful. Because of the wizardry involved, they were very effects-laden. So I don’t blame them. But I did not want to combine the movies, and I wanted it to be live action."

Spielberg ultimately turned down the directing role in favour of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.