In an interview marking Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’s 20th anniversary in November 2020, Chris told The Hollywood Reporter he decided not to direct the third Harry Potter film because of how exhausting and time-consuming it was to work on the first two.

“Sorcerer’s Stone took 160 days of shooting, which is ridiculously long. And then, immediately after we stopped shooting, we started shooting Chamber of Secrets, which was another 160 days. That’s roughly 320 days — not counting second-unit [filming] — back-to-back shooting.”

After Chamber of Secrets, Chris “could barely speak” and felt “emotionally and physically exhausted,” he said. “I wasn’t seeing my kids, who were young at the time, growing up,” he added. “I was missing dinners with them. I thought, ‘I can’t do another six, seven, eight years of this. My kids will grow up, and I’ll never get to know them.’”