‘Potter’ director David Yates on Oscars: ‘We’re not going to go without a fight’

Earlier today, MuggleNet staff member Eric Scull had a chance to sit down with Harry Potter director David Yates as part of the Harry Potter Home Entertainment Celebration in Orlando, Florida.

One of the topics of discussion was the recent push for Deathly Hallows – Part 2 at the 2012 Academy Awards. Here is what David Yates had to say:

“We’re starting a campaign to try and push it and WB is doing a really great job at that. We’re going to do some junkets and some press stuff to help that process. I think the film deserves a bit of Oscar attention – the visual effects, Stuart’s [Craig] design, Alexandre’s [Desplat] music, David Heyman and David Barron as producers have done this extraordinary job.

David Heyman, in particular has made eight of the most successful movies of all time with this enormous, popular reach. And critically, the films have always been given a reasonably good ride. We got a great response to the last one – I think, one of the best reviewed movies of the year.

So you kind of say, ‘Come on guys, it’s time to the step up to the plate!” and acknowledge that there is a lot of good work from a lot of good people that has gone into this movie and these movies. I hope the Davids… that sort of 10, 15 years of incredible input and output is somehow acknowledged.

We’ve always been ignored slightly, and we’re all totally cool about it, equally. Let me say that. It’s very important. But we’re going to to go all out and get some Oscar buzz. We’re very zen-like in our attitude toward the Oscars. Having been overlooked so many times before, we kind of fully expect to be overlooked again. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to go without a fight.”

Yates also didn’t seem opposed to Eric’s suggestion of getting the fans involved.

“That would be cool! You can be our guerilla campaign. We need to bring you guys in to help with the cause!”