Hurt spoke to Rotten Tomatoes in 2009 as the “Harry Potter” series was coming to an end, but still had scenes to shoot in the penultimate film. He spoke about the film franchise ending being “a big loss for Britain in terms of having a big studio movie here.” However, he also said that it’s “not representative of our culture in terms of the films that we make.” Hurt called for the government of the United Kingdom to “take a bit more notice” because he thought that independent films were an important part of the British film industry, not just the mega-blockbusters like “Harry Potter.”
He seemed a bit put out that even though many big films were shot at British studios like Pinewood and Shepperton, lots of them, even the “Harry Potter” titles, weren’t British films and were crowding out other things. Despite the British setting and British actors, this was still a Hollywood picture. “I do think huge areas of the industry are being neglected, and we’ve lost the ability for middle-budget films,” he said. That is pretty true of the industry in general, even now, arguably even more so. I tell you all of this to say that when Hurt is complaining about how much money the “Harry Potter” franchise spent, there is a reason behind his words.