At the Harry Potter Studio Tour press conference, Hypable had a chance to sit down with David Yates, and asked him whether he regretted cutting Dumbledore’s funeral from The Half-Blood Prince.

As it happened, our Hypable reporter ended up doing her roundtable interviews in a room full of concept designs and drawings from the Potter films. When speaking to David Yates, the conversation turned to the amazing visuals that were designed but never brought to life on screen, and Selina pointed out the beautiful Adam Brockbank painting showing Dumbledore’s funeral as it would have appeared in the film.

This led to a conversation about why the scene never made it into the movie, and Yates said:

It’s a beautiful picture. That scene was in and out, and in and out again… it was a rhythmic thing, it felt weirdly book-ended. So you would read the script and you’d get to Dumbledore’s death, and it felt climactic and moving. And then we went to the Great Hall and this austerity… it sort of felt weirdly complete. And then you got to this grand funeral, and it felt less about the man and more about the pomp of the ceremony, and it felt oddly less connected. So just rhythmically it felt wrong. But I love that scene, it’s a beautiful scene in the book, but it felt wrong in the movie.

When asked whether there was a chance that some version of the scene would some day make it to a special edition, Yates confirmed that nothing was ever filmed; the scene never made it past the script.

Yates’ decision to cut the scene gave way to a great ending to the film. But would you liked to have seen the beautiful scene from the book visualised?

Hypable will have lots more to report from the Harry Potter Studio Tour press conference, so watch this space!