David Yates Talks Two “Beautiful” Scenes Left on “Fantastic Beasts” Cutting Room Floor
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them director David Yates spoke to MuggleNet back in September about the liberating feeling of building Fantastic Beasts from the ground up – but as any creator knows, to build something great means having to get rid of a few elements in the process.
Yates recently spoke with SlashFilm about his favorite sequences from Fantastic Beasts that were ultimately cut out of the movie (which clocks in at over two hours in length). Yates, having directed the last four Potter films, is no stranger to cutting scenes for the greater good. Despite that, he took time to reflect on two sequences he was particularly sorry to let go, featuring Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski), Alison Sudol (Queenie Goldstein), and Katherine Waterston (Porpentina Goldstein):
One is Jacob coming home from the bank, and he’s been refused the loan, and Mildred, his girlfriend, is waiting for him. She runs up in the street to see him, and she says, ‘Did you get the loan?’ And he says, ‘No, I didn’t get the loan.’ And she takes her ring off and gives it back to him. And she says, ‘I thought you were getting a bakery’ and leaves him. It’s a really heartbreaking scene, and Dan is beautiful in it.
There’s another scene where Alison and Katherine sing the Ilvermorny song, the school song. I asked Alison would she write it, and she wrote this beautiful Ilvermorny school song. And they sing it together, and the two boys, Jacob and Newt… they sit there and they watch. And as the girls perform this song, this ode to Ilvermorny, they slowly fall in love.
Both sequences sound captivating, to say the least, but Yates stands by his choices. Despite initially questioning himself, he emphasized how he loved both scenes but that they were necessary sacrifices for the overall good of the movie:
They’re both beautiful scenes, but in the movie and in the momentum of the movie, they didn’t quite work.
If you’re sorry to see these moving sequences abandoned on the cutting room floor, don’t despair yet – Yates confirmed with SlashFilm that they will appear in the extras of the DVD release, along with many more bonus features. Rest assured that there will be plenty to be excited about long after the theatrical release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Indeed, since the legendary “Hoggy Warty Hogwarts” also never made it to the silver screen, the prospect of getting to hear a beautiful Ilvermorny tune – written by Alison Sudol herself! – is positively magical.
Do you agree with David Yates’s decision to axe Jacob’s heartbreak and the Ilvermorny song for the greater good? And are you as excited as we are to hear the Ilvermorny song on the DVD extras? Let us know in the comments below!