Last year's ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,'' starring three neophytes -- Daniel Radcliffe (as the title hero), Emma Watson (as Hermione Granger), and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) -- conjured $318 million in the U.S. and more than twice that overseas, sliding in behind ''Titanic'' as the second-biggest worldwide box office hit in history. Then there were the 9 million DVDs. The plush toys. The videogames. The Coca-Cola tie-ins. The vibrating broomsticks.
Critics groused, and a lot of older fans were put off by the omnipresent Potter merchandising. Columbus remains irked by the accusations that he delivered a piece with no imagination of its own that was nothing more than an excuse for action figures. ''I was very frustrated. Because we could have TOTALLY sold out. I remember reading a review that said, 'How can I judge it as a movie? It's a corporate machine.' And I thought to myself, you are so full of it. That is NOT what we did!'' he says. ''Had I turned this thing into all the other horrific ideas that were going around -- whether I took it to Hollywood and set it in a high school, put American kids into the production, whatever -- I would have been drawn and quartered. I DIDN'T go in there with some kind of corporate mentality, saying that if we do it this way we'll make such and such amount of money.... I think we made a classic film.''
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