The Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie cut several important plot points from the book, one of which was a crucial moment between Harry and the Weasley twins, Fred and George. The film never had much time to explore Harry’s personal relationships outside of the Golden Trio. So, the twins were only ever seen as Ron’s funny older brothers, who had very little to do with the central plot. This was not the case in the Goblet of Fire book, where Fred and George were at the center of their own mystery involving an important and also absent character, Ludo Bagman, ultimately leading to their most significant moment with Harry.
While Bagman is missing from the Harry Potter movies, he was one of the central suspects for who entered Harry’s name in the Goblet of Fire book. He was a Ministry official and Triwizard judge, and Harry knew that Fred and George were somehow involved with him. He had overheard the twins whispering about potentially blackmailing Ludo Bagman, and they were often seen sneaking around and looking distressed. After Voldemort’s return, Harry learns that the Weasley twins had bet their life’s savings against Ludo at the Quidditch World Cup, but the man never paid them. He owed mountains of gold to more than just Fred and George, so he wound up running away, never to be seen again.
Goblet Of Fire Cut Harry’s Big Fred & George Moment
After Fred and George Weasley confessed that they had lost all their money and, with it, their dreams of opening a joke shop, Harry decided to give them his Triwizard Tournament prize money— a whopping 1,000 Galleons. It was a tender moment that further connected Harry with the Weasley family and one that was rarely observed with the eternal jokesters. With the return of Voldemort in Goblet of Fire, Harry knew that his life and everyone else’s in the Wizarding World would change, and the kind of laughs that the Weasley twins could offer with their shop was exactly what everyone needed.
Of course, the Goblet of Fire movie did not include Fred and George’s conflict with Ludo Bagman and the solution of Harry offering them his winnings. Instead, Bagman was cut entirely, along with other characters like Charlie Weasley, and the Weasley twins went about their school year as their usual comical selves, offering students samples of the products they were developing. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes would suddenly appear as a fully functioning shop in Diagon Alley two years later in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with no explanation of how the twins could have afforded it.
Why Goblet Of Fire Cuts The Triwizard Winnings Scene
Instead of the moment between Harry and the Weasley twins, Goblet of Fire ended with a scene featuring Harry, Ron, and Hermione together, accepting that everything in their lives was going to change. The scene brought together the sorrow of Cedric’s death at Voldemort’s hand and the steadfast companionship of the Golden Trio. Unfortunately, the purely comical role the Harry Potter movies had established for Fred and George just wouldn’t have fit here and would have only distracted from the new direction that the films were taking now that the Dark Lord had become a more tangible threat.
In addition, the Fred and George subplot wouldn’t have made sense without the full events of the Quidditch World Cup, and the presence of Ludo Bagman, which the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie just didn’t have time for with the focus on Mad-Eye Moody’s evil plot. In the end, the explanation behind how the twins opened Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes wasn’t the most critical element to include in the movies. Instead, they focused only on the joyful impact Fred and George and their beloved joke shop had on the hearts of the Wizarding World and fans alike.
