At yesterday's junket for the upcoming Green Zone, Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon were both asked by journalists the future of the franchise they are best known for: the Jason Bourne films. It has been up in the air for a while now what the status of the fourth film was and if reports regarding disagreement with the studio were true. While this news was the most widespread out of the event, another actor in the film, one Jason Isaacs, who plays one of the film's main antagonists, has a small franchise of his own going on that you may have heard of.
Speaking in a round-table interview, Isaacs was asked about his experience working on the final two films in the franchise (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Parts One and Two), in which he plays the evil Lucius Malfoy.
Well, very sad for me. I was already nostalgic for the history of Harry Potter while I was still making it and I knew the end was coming. It was two films...they made the last book into two films and it was a fantastic experience because everybody's back...everyone who is left alive that is...and even some of the dead people. There is nothing greater than sitting around on a Harry Potter set when you're not filming and listening to the likes of Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent tell stories. And watching everybody crew the scenery up in the few moments you get on screen - trying to out ham each other is magnificent. This big franchise goes out in an epic way. But I was always cognizant of the fact that I'd have to pack up my little furry friend of a wig and stick it in a box and say goodbye to the cane. All the joy was tinged with sadness for me.
Much like the book, the final film will end in an epic battle that pits all of the remaining forces of good against all of the remaining forces of evil. While each Harry Potter film has ended with at least some sort of a battle sequence, none up to this point have attempted anything near the scale of what is expected. According to Isaacs, however, the team has actually managed to go even beyond what you can imagine from J.K. Rowling's work.
I think the end of the films will be a fantastically cinematic and visual feast. It will more than satisfy the readers of the books...but you won't get is the book on screen. You'll get something more and different. Everybody is very savvy to the notion that this is a much-loved franchise and this will be the end of an eighth film, and it needs to have weight and substance and you need to feel drained by the end of it. It's a ten-year roller coaster ride, not a two-hour roller coaster ride, and we all know it and we all felt it, and it was in the air while we were shooting it.
As upset as Isaacs may be to see the the franchise end, fans still have months of anticipation to look forward to, with the first part coming in November and the second in July of next year. Should the film live up to the bar that the actor has set the film on, however, it could be a real treat for both Potter Heads and regular movie goers alike.
