Steve Kloves adapted the first four Harry Potter books for the feature films and will be back to write The Half Blood Prince. He needed a break though, so Michael Goldenberg handled the script for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Having also adapted Contact and Peter Pan, Goldenberg knew a thing or two about translating books to screen.
Goldenberg on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
"For me they’re not that different in that all those films deal with a very heightened realities that are based in real characters and rooted in a real reality," said Goldenberg. "It’s that wonderful tension between the incredible believability and realism that David [Yates] brought to Order of the Phoenix verses that incredible heightened world and there’s something about that science fiction or fantasy working as a metaphor for those inner dramas."
And then there are the Potter fans who've memorized the books and want to see everything they read on screen. "Certainly you can’t not be aware of all of those fans out there, but we’re all fans ourselves. From the very beginning it was very liberating because from the first time we met with Jo [Rowling], she gave us permission to do whatever was necessary to make a great film. She told us she wants to see a great movie and understands that now more than anybody what you need to do to translate from one medium to another. It felt like we were on pretty solid territory there. When we started we wanted to keep up with the spirit of the books and to make the best possible movie and version of that story."
He also followed David Yates' mandate not to make references to past or future stories if they did not directly impact Order of the Phoenix. "David was quite wonderfully ruthless of that. I don’t know if that comes from thrillers, keeping it very much in the moment and keeping everything on a need to know basis which is generally hard to do anyway. We pushed the limit on that I think and the question was, ‘Do you absolutely need it? Does it make sense for the context? Can you use that information without spelling it out?’ Just streamlining everything as much as possible and it’s amazing how much information you get in a frame, how much your mind fills in even if you’re not up to speed on the specifics. I think David was right about that and it gives the film a vitality that it wouldn’t have otherwise."
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is out in theaters.
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