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''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'' is a 2007 fantasy adventure film, based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. Directed by David Yates, produced by David Heyman's company Heyday Films, and written by Michael Goldenberg, it is the fifth film in the popular ''Harry Potter'' film series. The story follows Harry Potter in his fifth year at the magic school Hogwarts. The Ministry of Magic refuses to believe the return of Lord Voldemort and appoints bureaucrat Dolores Umbridge as a teacher at the school.

Live-action filming took place in England and Scotland for exterior locations and Leavesden Film Studios in Watford for interior locations from February to November 2006, with a one-month break in June. Post-production on the film continued for several months afterwards to add in visual effects. The film's budget was reportedly between £75 and 100 million ($150–200 million). Warner Bros., the distributor of the film, released it in the UK on 12 July 2007, and in North America on 11 July, both in conventional and IMAX theatres, and was the first Potter film to be released in IMAX 3-D.

It is the unadjusted seventh-highest grossing film of all time, and a critical and commercial success, acclaimed as ''the best one yet'' by Rowling, who has consistently offered praise for the film adaptations of her work. The film opened to a worldwide 5-day opening of $333 million, fourth all-time, and grossed $939 million total, the second to ''Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'' for the greatest total of 2007.

Plot

Harry Potter and his cousin Dudley Dursley are attacked by two Dementors, but Harry drives them off with a Patronus charm. The Ministry of Magic detects the act of underage wizardry and attempts to have Harry expelled from Hogwarts immediately, but this is modified to a trial later in the summer. Harry is later awoken by the arrival of an advance guard of wizards who escort him to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, a secret organisation founded by Dumbledore. Harry learns that under the Ministry's influence ''The Daily Prophet'' has launched a smear campaign against anyone who claims that Voldemort has returned.

Harry and Arthur Weasley head to the court for Harry's trial. With the help of Dumbledore and Harry's neighbour, Mrs. Figg, Harry is cleared of all charges and allowed to return to Hogwarts. Upon arrival, Harry sees creatures pulling the carriages to Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville share a carriage with Luna Lovegood, an odd, but kind girl who claims that she can see the creatures, too. During Harry, Ron and Hermione's fifth year at Hogwarts School, the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge appoints a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge, a senior Ministry official who refuses to teach practical magic, as the Ministry fears Dumbledore will organise his own wizard army. Harry is punished for claiming Voldemort has returned, which according to Ministry policy is a lie. Harry is forced to write, ''I must not tell lies,'' repeatedly as punishment in his own blood, creating a scar of those words on his hand.

Harry sees Luna in the forest with the creatures that pulled the Hogwarts carriages. She tells him that they are called Thestrals and that they can only be seen by those who have seen death, explaining why Ron and Hermione couldn't see them. Luna mentions that the Thestrals are very gentle, but people avoid them because of their evil looks.

As Umbridge's control over the school increases, Ron and Hermione aid Harry in forming a secret group calling themselves ''Dumbledore's Army'' or D.A. for short. Harry, Ron and Hermione secretly train students in defensive spells. The Slytherin students are recruited by Umbridge to uncover the secretive group. Meanwhile, Harry and Cho begin to develop romantic feelings for each other.

Harry has a nightmare that involves an attack upon Arthur Weasley in the Department of Mysteries that echoes an actual attack. Fearing Voldemort will exploit his connection to Harry, Dumbledore instructs Professor Snape to give Harry Occlumency lessons to block his mind from Voldemort's influence.

Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius Black's deranged cousin, escapes from Azkaban along with nine other Death Eaters. At Hogwarts Umbridge, Filch and her loyal Inquisitorial Squad uncover Dumbledore's Army after interrogating Cho. Dumbledore is questioned and escapes as Fudge orders his arrest. With Dumbledore gone, Umbridge becomes the new Headmistress and her dominance over the school continues.

With Hagrid likely to be fired by Umbridge due to her prejudice against ''half-breeds'', he shows Harry, Ron, and Hermione Grawp, his Giant half-brother. Hagrid asks the trio to take care of Grawp if anything should happen to him.

During an O.W.L. exam, the Weasley twins revolt and set off a large display of fireworks in the Great Hall, causing chaos for Umbridge. During the applause of Fred and George's escape, Harry has a vision of Sirius being tortured by Voldemort within the Department of Mysteries. Harry, Ron, and Hermione rush to search for Sirius, but Umbridge catches the trio, and begins interrogating Harry. Hermione tricks Umbridge into entering the Forbidden Forest along with Harry and her in search of a faux weapon, leading her to the hiding place of Grawp only to find him missing. A herd of centaurs, who have their own issues with the Ministry, emerge and carry the Headmistress into the darkness after she insults and attacks them. Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Neville and Ginny fly to the Ministry of Magic on the Thestrals' backs to save Sirius.

right]]The six enter the Department of Mysteries, where they uncover a prophecy involving Harry and Voldemort, but are ambushed by Death Eaters, including Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. Lucius reveals to Harry that Sirius isn't in any danger and that he only saw what the Dark Lord wanted him to see. Lucius attempts to sway Harry into giving him the prophecy, telling him that it will reveal why Voldemort tried to kill him when he was an infant. Harry refuses and a fight between the D.A. and the Death Eaters ensues. The Death Eaters take Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville and Ginny as hostages, threatening to kill them if Harry does not surrender the prophecy. The Order of the Phoenix appears and attacks the Death Eaters. Lucius drops the prophecy, destroying it. A battle erupts, resulting in Sirius's death at Bellatrix's hand. Harry, enraged by the loss of his godfather, corners Bellatrix in the atrium. He attempts to torture her with the Cruciatus Curse, but to no avail. Voldemort himself appears, tempting Harry to give in to his hatred for Bellatrix. Harry then turns his wand on Voldemort who disarms him with ease. Before Voldemort can kill Harry, Dumbledore emerges to face the Dark Lord in battle.

A brief but furious duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore ensues. After the duel ends in a stalemate, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry, however, he is repelled by the love Harry has for his friends and Sirius. Ministry officials including Fudge and Percy Weasley hastily arrive via the Floo Network moments before Voldemort disapparates. Fudge is forced to admit that Voldemort has returned. Harry is vindicated, Umbridge is suspended and Dumbledore is reinstated as headmaster.

Dumbledore explains that he attempted to distance himself from Harry all year, hoping it would lessen the risk of Voldemort using his connection to Harry. Harry comes to terms with the prophecy: that either he or Voldemort will have to kill the other. With the students going home for the summer, Harry tells his friends that they have one thing Voldemort does not have: love, something worth fighting for.

Cast

Casting

Casting began as early as May 2005, when Radcliffe announced he would reprise his role as Harry. Across the media frenzy that took place during the release of ''Goblet of Fire'', most of the main returning actors announced their return to the series, including Grint, Watson, Lewis, Wright, Leung, and Fiennes.

A number of characters new to the series appear in the film. Staunton announced she would be playing the major new role of Dolores Umbridge in October 2005, and the announcements of the casting of the rest of the new characters to the series was spanned across 2006. Evanna Lynch won the role of Luna Lovegood over 15,000 other girls who attended the open casting call, waiting in a line of hopefuls that stretched a mile long.

As early as August 2005, rumours began linking Helen McCrory to the role of Bellatrix Lestrange. On 2 February 2006 it was announced that McCrory had indeed been cast as Bellatrix. However, in April 2006 she revealed that she was three months pregnant and withdrew from the film because she would not have been able to perform the intense battle sequences in the Ministry of Magic in September and October 2006. The announcement that Helena Bonham Carter had been recast in the role was made on 25 May 2006.

The inclusion or cutting of some characters sparked speculation from fans as to the importance of the characters in the final book of the series, which was released just ten days after the film. In April 2006, representatives of Jim McManus said he would be playing Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus' brother and the barman of the Hog's Head, in which Harry and his friends found the D.A. A week later WB announced that the role was ''very minor'', allaying some of the speculation to the significance of the role, which, before the final book, was not even a speaking part. MTV reported in October 2006 that Dobby the house elf, who appeared in the second film, ''Chamber of Secrets'', and in the fifth book, would be cut, opening up ''plot questions'' as to how the role of the elf would be filled. MTV also reported about a month before the release of the final book that Kreacher, the Black family's house-elf, was cut from the film in one draft of the script. However, after Rowling prodded the filmmakers to include him, saying, ''You know, I wouldn't [cut him] if I were you. Or you can, but if you get to make a seventh film, you'll be tied in knots'', he was added back into the script.

Other minor roles were cut with subsequent drafts of the script. At the U.S. premiere of ''Goblet of Fire'', series producer David Heyman said that former Hogwarts professor Gilderoy Lockhart, played by Kenneth Branagh in ''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'', was in the first draft of the script for ''Phoenix''. However, neither Branagh nor the character of Lockhart appears in the final version. Tiana Benjamin was scheduled to return for the film in the role of Angelina Johnson, the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, but she had to withdraw due to a commitment to playing Chelsea Fox in ''EastEnders''. The character, as well as the entire Quidditch subplot, was ultimately cut from the film. She did, however, record sound clips for the ''Order of the Phoenix'' video game.

The family of footballer Theo Walcott made a cameo role in the film. Theo himself was due to appear as well, though his commitments to Arsenal forced him to pull out.

Production

David Yates was chosen to direct the film after ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' director Mike Newell, as well as Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Matthew Vaughn and Mira Nair, turned down offers. Yates believed he was approached because the studio saw him fit to handle an ''edgy and emotional'' film with a ''political backstory'', which one of his previous projects, the television drama ''Sex Traffic'', demonstrated. There were a number of notable new sets in this film. The atrium in the Ministry of Magic is over 200 feet in length, making it the largest and most expensive set built for the ''Potter'' film series to date. The set of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place contains the Black family tapestry spread across three walls; when the producers told Rowling they wanted to visualise the details of each name and birth year, she faxed them a complete copy of the entire tree. The set of the Hall of Prophecies was entirely digitally built. During a fight scene which occurs there, prophecies crash to the ground and break; had it been an actual physical set, the reset time would have been weeks.

The set used for Igor Karkaroff's trial scene in ''Goblet of Fire'' was doubled in size for Harry's trial in this film, while still protecting its symmetry. A 24-hour photo shoot was held to photograph and film the kittens for use on these plates. The quill which Umbridge gives Harry to write lines is designed by the set designers. Aerial scenes were shot in Glen Coe, in Clachaig Gully,

A new character in the film, Grawp, Hagrid's giant half-brother, came to life by a new technology called Soul Capturing, developed by Image Metrics . Instead of building the character from scratch, the movements and facial expressions of actor Tony Maudsley were used to model Grawp's actions. In March and April 2007, Hooper and the London Chamber Orchestra recorded nearly two hours of music at Abbey Road Studios in London. The score, like the film and book, is darker than previous instalments in the series. To emphasise this, the two new main themes reflect the sinister new character Dolores Umbridge, and Lord Voldemort's invasion of Harry's mind. A Japanese Taiko drum was used for a deeper sound in the percussion. Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg described his task to cut down the novel as searching for ''the best equivalent way to tell the story. My job was to stay true to the spirit of the book, rather than to the letter''. Goldenberg said that Rowling told him, the producers, and Yates that ''she just wanted to see a great movie, and gave [them] permission to take whatever liberties [they] felt [they] needed to take to translate the book into a movie she would love''.

One cut Goldenberg had to make, which he ''hated'' to do, was the absence of Quidditch, the Wizarding sport.

In a significant scene in the book, Harry sees a memory of his own father humiliating Snape in their school days, and Snape insulting his mother after she stood up for him. In the film, it is abbreviated to an ''idea'', in Goldenberg's words. ''It's an iconic moment when you realize your parents are normal, flawed human beings. ... Things get trimmed out, but I kept the sausage of that in there — and that was what really gave me the coming-of-age story.''

The film was released in most countries in a two-week period starting 11 July 2007. WB has tried to stick with day-and-date releases for most countries ''except in the Middle East and a few minor markets, because most are going to be in holidays at that point''. The set of summer releases, even though the films are typically released in the winter, ''really maximizes our opportunity'', said a representative for WB. The high-definition DVDs had combined sales of 179,500 copies, ''Variety'' praised Alan Rickman's portrayal of Severus Snape, writing that he ''may have outdone himself; seldom has an actor done more with less than he does here''. Newcomer Evanna Lynch, playing Luna Lovegood, also received good word from a number of reviewers including the ''New York Times'' who declared her ''spellbinding''.

Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone'' also lauded the three principal actors' achievements, especially Radcliffe: ''One of the joys of this film is watching Daniel Radcliffe grow so impressively into the role of Harry. He digs deep into the character and into Harry's nightmares. It's a sensational performance, touching all the bases from tender to fearful''. ''Rolling Stone'''s review also classified the film as better than the previous four instalments in the series, by losing the ''candy-ass aspect'' of the first two and ''raising the bar'' from the ''heat and resonance'' of the third and fourth. Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone'' called the film ''the best of the series so far, [with] the laughs, the jitters and the juice to make even nonbelievers wild about Harry''. Kirk Honeycutt of the ''The Hollywood Reporter'' wrote that ''Phoenix'' is ''quite possibly the least enjoyable of the [series] so far'', and that despite ''several eye-catching moments'', ''the magic – movie magic, that is – is mostly missing''. The review also criticised the under use of the ''cream of British acting'', noting the brief appearances of Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Emma Thompson, David Thewlis, Richard Griffiths, and Julie Walters.

Box office

The film opened to a worldwide 5-day opening of $333 million, the fourth-biggest opening of all time, behind ''Spider-Man 3'', ''Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'' and ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince''. In the United States, tickets for hundreds of midnight showings of the film, bought from online ticket-seller Fandango, were sold out, making up approximately 90% of the site's weekly ticket sales. In the U.S. and Canada, midnight screenings (very early morning on 11 July) brought in $12 million from 2,311 midnight exhibitions making the showings ''the most successful batch of midnight exhibitions ever''. In one-night earnings, ''Phoenix'' is behind only ''At World's End'', which had debuted four hours earlier on its date.

In the U.S. and Canada, ''Phoenix'' earned an additional $32.2 million on Wednesday, post-midnight showings, making it the biggest Wednesday single-day gross in box office history, with a total of $44.2 million. That amount tops Sony Pictures' ''Spider-Man 2'', which had held the record since 2004 with its $40.4 million take on a Wednesday. It is also the fifth-biggest opening day for a movie in history, surpassing ''At World's End's'' $42.9 million. It earned $1.9 million from a record-breaking 91 IMAX screens, the highest opening day ever for any IMAX day of the week, beating ''Spider-Man 3's'' $1.8 million. In the U.K. the result was similar. The film made £16.5 million during its opening 4-day run, breaking the U.K. box office record for the biggest 4-day opening weekend ever.

Awards

Before it was released, ''Order of the Phoenix'' was nominated in a new category at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards, Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet. However, that award was won by ''Transformers''. On 26 August 2007, the film won the award for Choice Summer Movie – Drama/Action Adventure at the Teen Choice Awards.

The film was also nominated for several awards at the 2007 Scream Awards presented by Spike TV, in the categories of The Ultimate Scream, Best Fantasy Movie, and Best Sequel. Daniel Radcliffe was nominated in the Fantasy Hero categories, respectively. The film won for Best Sequel and Ralph Fiennes won for ''Most Vile Villain''. The film picked up three awards at the inaugural ITV National Movie Awards, taking Best Family Film, Best Actor for Radcliffe and Best Actress for Emma Watson. The film was one of ten nominees for a 2007 Hollywood Movie of the Year. It was also nominated for Best Live Action Family Film at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards and won the 2007 People's Choice Award for ''Favorite Movie Drama''. Having been nominated for six awards at the 2008 Sony Ericsson Empire Awards, organised by ''Empire'', including Best Film, Yates won Best Director.

Nicholas Hooper received a nomination for a World Soundtrack Discovery Award for his score to the film. Imelda Staunton was nominated in the ''British Actress in a Supporting Role'' category at the London Film Critics Circle Awards. At the 2008 BAFTA Awards, the film was nominated but did not win for ''Best Production Design'' and ''Best Special Visual Effects''. ''Order of the Phoenix'' was also nominated for the awards from the Art Directors Guild and Costume Designers Guild, and was awarded for ''Outstanding Special Effects in a Motion Picture'' by the Visual Effects Society out of six nominations.