With all of the talk and attention surrounding Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, everyone's memories naturally drift back into the realm of the original series that started J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World, Harry Potter. Seven books, eight films, and a stage play's worth of magical drama and excitement later, the world is still drawn to The Boy Who Lived and his many adventures. Though if director David Yates was allowed to pursue one of his original ideas, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would have had an extra twist: the return of Hermione's one time paramour, Viktor Krum.
Leave it to the man himself to spill the beans, as actor Stanislav Ianevski, the man who played Krum in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, sat down to speak with EW's Binge podcast to discuss his character. With their first Potter-centric season, and the fourth episode naturally focusing on the samely numbered installment, Ianevski spoke about a deleted subplot that would have strayed from the books, but was cut for very specific reasons:
[Yates] invented a new story that wasn't in the books, a love triangle between Viktor Krum, Hermione, and Ron, but that was cut out of the film because it obviously didn't fit with all the horrible things that happen in the last book.
The rationale mentioned by Ianevski is pretty solid, as by the time Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows got started with the first of its two part story, Dumbledore was freshly dead and the Weasleys were still recovering from the attack fabricated for the film version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. By that point, the story was so focused on the resolution provided in the final book that a plot point as surprising as Viktor Krum's return would have simultaneously felt like a last minute addition, as well an underdeveloped loose thread.
Still, the fact that this newly revealed sequence exists surely means that someone knows what it was to entail, right? Luckily enough, Stanislav Ianevski then went on to describe the cut scene from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, and it couldn't have happened at a more inappropriate time. Brace yourself, because this is what almost happened, according to Ianevski:
We did a new dance scene, I sort of stole [Hermione] from Ron. She remembered our old times, Viktor was acting like a gentleman again, happy to see her, she was happy to see him. Ron was sitting on the side, was jealous, and then Viktor took her to the dance floor.
So just before the devastating second attack on the Weasley burrow, during the wedding of Bill and Fleur, Viktor would have came in to throw some romantic tension into a scene that was about to erupt into chaotic action. Whoever made the first suggestion to cut this scene from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I should have gotten a raise, as this would have been extremely confusing, and ridiculous enough to distract from the action that would follow.
Let's hope that the same sort of editorial judgement was in play when Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them hit the editing bay, as we'd hate to see November 18th bring us a movie that could make such a misstep such as this one a reality.
