Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are gathered around Sirius Black as the full moon rises. It’s a crucial scene in The Prisoner of Azkaban that sees the escaped convict shed his human form and become a werewolf, foiling the trio’s capture of Peter Pettigrew, the man who betrayed Harry’s parents. There’s just one problem. The moon is completely covered by clouds.
“I think it took about four or five months after the initial request before they actually got the scene done,” Richard Wild tells me. In the past two decades, Wild – chief meteorologist at weather data site WeatherNet – has become Hollywood’s unofficial weatherman. When a studio wants rain, fog, sunshine, snow, or a full moon on a clear night, Wild is the man they call. From the new Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon to Mission: Impossible, come rain or shine, he’s their man.
