"You don't bring in a director like Mike Newell and tell him, 'Well, you've got to make a film just like Chris Columbus,'" explains producer David Heyman. "It'd be foolish. So for me, I look this film, I see Mike Newell. I mean, I see Jo Rowling, but I see Mike Newell written all over it and that's really exciting for me."

"What he said was 'You must read the book and if you find a way of doing the book, then you must tell us what that is. You mustn't come because it's a franchise. You mustn't come because it's the most famous children's film that's ever been. You mustn't come for this that and the other reason. You've got to be able to see how to make a 750-page book into a single movie,'" Newell recalls.

"Alfonso put a lot of trust in us and it was so nice that he really wanted to hear what we had to say and what we thought, but Mike kind of took it to a new level," Watson says. "In a way, I think, I'd be doing something really difficult and I'd just say, 'I can't get this right. Just tell me what you want me to do. Just tell me how you want this to be, I'm going crazy.' And he'd just say, 'I can't tell you how to do it. I'm not going to tell you how to do it.'"