Ultimately, it took eight formal drafts to get Goblet rolling by summer 2004. Scenes were telescoped (like the Quidditch World Cup). Subplots were ditched — like that Hermione/house-elves business. (''I was disappointed to hear that,'' says Watson, 15. ''But I guess something had to go.'') Newell continued to worry throughout filming that Goblet lacked a thriller's proper backbone. Over Christmas, he brainstormed a way to bring more cohesion to the tale — a recurring motif, too spoilerish to describe — that required further script work. On top of all this, he had to make sense of a massive budget (reportedly $130 million) that never seemed massive enough, while also mounting some of the trickiest set pieces ever in a Potter film, including an underwater tussle with fanged aquatic creatures that called for the construction of the largest water tank for filmmaking purposes in Europe.