Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth film in the popular Harry Potter series, begun with the novel by J.K. Rowling. It was directed by Mike Newell and was released on November 18, 2005. It is rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images in the US, 12A for cinema and 12 on DVD in the UK and M in Australia. This is the first Harry Potter film to receive a "PG-13" or equivalent rating, the preceding films having been rated PG or one of its international equivalents.

The film concerns Harry Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hogwarts has been selected to hold the recently returning wizard competition known as the Triwizard Tournament. Though Harry does not apply, the Goblet of Fire mysteriously selects him as a second representative of Hogwarts in the tournament.

Three days after its release, the film had grossed approximately USD102 million at the North American box office, the highest first-week tally for a Harry Potter film, and enjoyed an immensely successful run at the box office, earning over $892 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing film of 2005 worldwide and the 8th highest grossing worldwide film of all time. It is currently the second highest grossing Harry Potter film, behind Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, but lost to Memoirs of a Geisha while the DVD set the Guinness World Record for being the fastest selling DVD of all time.

Synopsis

Hogwarts will be hosting the Triwizard Tournament, a traditional tournament which pits three schools against each other. When Beuxbatons and Durmstrang, the rival schools, arrive, the rules are announced. All seventh years interested must insert their name into the Goblet of Fire, and those chosen will be the Champions of their respective school. But Harry, a fourth year, has his name appear out of the Goblet of Fire, even though Harry never entered and isn't even allowed to. Harry soon finds himself thrown into a brutal test of strength and mind only to ultimately find himself in the middle of Lord Voldemort's trap as he plans to return. Now Harry has to face the greatest challenge yet: defeat a revived Lord Voldemort.

Cast

Role	Actor
Harry Potter	Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley	Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger	Emma Watson
Lord Voldemort	Ralph Fiennes
Albus Dumbledore	Michael Gambon
Severus Snape	Alan Rickman
Rubeus Hagrid	Robbie Coltrane
Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody	Brendan Gleeson
Minerva McGonagall	Dame Maggie Smith
Rita Skeeter	Miranda Richardson
Sirius Black	Gary Oldman
Cedric Diggory	Robert Pattinson
Viktor Krum	Stanislav Ianevski
Fleur Delacour	Clémence Poésy
Cho Chang	Katie Leung
Cornelius Fudge	Robert Hardy
Parvati Patil	Shefali Chowdhury
Padma Patil	Afshan Azad
Ginny Weasley	Bonnie Wright
Peter Pettigrew	Timothy Spall
Draco Malfoy	Tom Felton
Lucius Malfoy	Jason Isaacs
Neville Longbottom	Matthew Lewis
Olympe Maxime	Frances de la Tour
Igor Karkaroff	Predrag Bjelac
Karkaroff's Aide	Tolga Safer
Arthur Weasley	Mark Williams
Fred Weasley	James Phelps
George Weasley	Oliver Phelps
Barty Crouch	Roger Lloyd-Pack
Barty Crouch Jr.	David Tennant
Moaning Myrtle	Shirley Henderson
Amos Diggory	Jeff Rawle
Argus Filch	David Bradley
James Potter	Adrian Rawlins
Lily Potter	Geraldine Somerville
Frank Bryce	Eric Sykes
The Weird Sisters band
Lead Singer	Jarvis Cocker
Drummer	Phil Selway
Lead guitar	Jonny Greenwood
Bass Guitar	Steve Mackey
Rhythm Guitar	Jason Buckle
Keyboards	Steve Claydon

Locations

The film was mainly shot in Leavesden Film Studios. Other locations used in filming are as follows:

Ashridge Estate, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom (including the Yule Ball Staircase scene)
Black Park, Iver, Buckinghamshire, England, UK
Divinity School, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Beachy Head, Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, UK
Glenfinnan Viaduct, Fort William, Highlands, Scotland, UK (Hogwarts Express)
New College, Holywell Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK (Cloister, Ferret Scene)
Steall Falls, Scotland, UK
Virginia Water, Surrey, England, UK
Beckley Park, Oxfordshire, England, UK

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to this film was composed and scored by Patrick Doyle. The track listing is as follows:

The Story Continues
Frank Dies
The Quidditch World Cup
The Dark Mark
Foreign Visitors Arrive
The Goblet Of Fire
Rita Skeeter
Sirius Fires
Harry Sees Dragons
Golden Egg
Neville's Waltz
Harry in Winter
Potter Waltz
Underwater Secrets
The Black Lake
Hogwart's March
The Maze
Voldemort
Death of Cedric
Another Year Ends
Hogwart's Hymn
Do The Hippogriff
This Is The Night
Magic Works

The Harry Potter themes from the first three films were composed by John Williams. Patrick Doyle incorporated these themes into this soundtrack, usually in a slightly altered form. The change of composer caused some minor upset; John Williams was simply too busy to score this film.
Tracks 22-24 Not composed by Patrick Doyle

Alterations from the book and previous films

The layout of Hogwarts Castle and its surrounding landscape has changed in each film adaptation. The following are the new changes made to Hogwarts Castle in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire film adaptation.

The Entrance Hall has been changed. There is now a courtyard in its place with a Clock Tower which leads to the Entrance Hall.
The Entrance Hall has been extended further from the Marble Staircase separating the Great Hall from the Main Tower.
The Owlery has been added to the grounds as a tall tower with many levels set atop a stone hill.
Two new valleys have been added.
- One is where the Dragon Arena is found in the first task. This valley is found vertically from the Owlery Tower. Further on in that new valley is a waterfall.
- The other is where the vast Triwizard Maze located. This valley is behind the Great Hall past Hagrid's Hut.
Some scenes in the film take place within a courtyard whose location is unknown. It is definitely not the Clock Tower Courtyard, the Entrance Courtyard, nor the courtyard by the Dark Tower.
The design of the three Bell Towers has been altered.

Weird Sisters lawsuit

In the runup to the movie, a Canadian folk group called the Wyrd Sisters filed a US$40-million lawsuit against Warner Brothers, the North American distributor of the film, Jarvis Cocker from Pulp, and Jonny Greenwood and Phil Selway of Radiohead for the use of their group's name. In the book, the band is called the "Weird Sisters" after the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth but was reportedly renamed the "Wyrd Sisters" for the film. Before the film was released, however, Warner Brothers removed all references to either name for the band. Nevertheless, the Wyrd Sisters moved for an injunction in a Canadian court to prevent distribution of the film in Canada. This motion was dismissed by an Ontario judge.

Reaction

The film was received very positively by critics, garnering an 89% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. The film was praised for being smarter and much wittier than its predecessors, and the young actors were credited with some of the most human performances in all of the movies so far. New cast members who were greeted with particular praise included Ralph Fiennes for his portrayal of Lord Voldemort, Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody, and Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter.

Negative criticisms of the movie included that its story was too clunky, jerky and confusing (because it was an abridgement of a much longer novel), that Ralph Fiennes was not scary enough and that Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, Jason Isaacs, Miranda Richardson and Maggie Smith did not get enough screen time. Also, some deemed Michael Gambon's aggressive portrayal of Albus Dumbledore as being too similar to Gandalf the Grey. The film has also been criticised for leaving out too much of the source material, specifically those parts of the story that set-up events that occur later in the series. These negative criticisms are similar to those made about the previous film.

Academy Awards

Award	Person
Nominated:
Best Art Direction, lost to ''Memoirs of a Geisha	Stuart Craig Stephanie McMillan

Box office

After an opening day of $40m at the North American box office, Goblet of Fire enjoyed a successful run at the box office, running for 20 weeks in theaters and closing on April 6, 2006. The film set numerous records including the highest non-May opening weekend in the US and the most successful opening ever in the UK, earning £14.9m in its opening weekend. Goblet of Fire then drew $102.7 million from 3,858 locations its opening weekend at the North American box office, setting a new opening high for the franchise and selling about as many tickets as the first movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, did in its opening weekend. The debut marked the fifth $100 million weekend in history, behind Spider-Man's $114.8 million, Revenge of the Sith's $108.4 million, Shrek 2's $108 million and The Last Stand's $102.8 million.

As of April 6, 2006, Goblet of Fire has earned $892.2 million worldwide according to Boxofficemojo, making it not only the highest grossing international and worldwide release of 2005, but one of the few films to have ever passed $600 million in international box office receipts. It has joined four other titles that have passed the $600 million mark, including Titanic, Return of the King, and the first two Harry Potter films. Its worldwide total includes $290 million from the U.S. and Canada.

The film was also released in IMAX theaters and grossed a total of $20,033,758 million worldwide for a cumulative per screen average of $188,998 thus setting a new record and a new milestone for a digitally re-mastered 2D IMAX release (Source: YahooFinance).

In January 2006, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire surpassed the box office takings of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, to become the eighth-highest grossing film of all time, and the second-highest grossing film in the Harry Potter series so far, behind Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The film ranks third in the North American box office (domestic) behind Revenge of the Sith and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for 2005 though both films rank lower than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in worldwide terms.^*

DVD

The film was released on DVD in North America on March 7 2006. It was available in one- and two-disc editions, as well as part of an 8-disc boxset that includes all four films to date.^* The bonus disc features three interactive games, as well as seven behind the scenes featurettes. The film was also released in UMD format for PSP.

Wal-Mart had a special bonus disc available for purchase alongside the single-disc editions that features extra features and a sample of the Harry Potter edition of the Scene It? DVD game.

On its first day of release in North America, over 5 million copies were sold, recording a franchise high for first-day sales. Within its first week it sold over a total of 9 million units of combined sales of both the widescreen and full screen versions of the DVD.^*

The UK edition was released on DVD on March 20 2006 and became the fastest selling UK DVD ever, selling six copies per second on its first day of release. According to the Official Charts Company, the DVD sold 1.4 million copies in its first week alone. It is also available in a two-disc edition with special features similar to the North American two-disc edition.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_4840000/newsid_4849900/4849952.stm

The DVD currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the fastest selling DVD of all time. The achievement will be added to the 2007 edition of The Guinness World Records book which will be released this coming August and will include a picture of the award being presented at Leavesden Studios in April. ^*

Future Shop has an exclusive promotion including a holographic cover for the two-disc edition.

Warner Home Video announced the HD DVD edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was to be released on April 11 2006 however, due to the delayed release of Toshiba's HD-DVD player, the HD DVD edition of Goblet of Fire was pushed back to April 18 2006 [http://itvibe.com/news/3993/.

The Chinese DVD edition was released 2 weeks before the North American release as an effort to combat DVD piracy in the country of China. The DVD was sold at a low price of $2.73 USD.

More DVD release dates

Brazil: March 23 2006
Denmark: March 26 2006
France: May 31 2006
Italy: March 22 2006
Norway: March 26 2006
Spain: March 29 2006
Sweden: March 29 2006
Australia: March 29 2006 ^*

Trivia

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was the top grossing film worldwide of 2005, making $892.2 Million to date making it the eighth top grossing movie of all time worldwide [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/.
The face of Moody's pocket watch has a picture of a biohazard symbol, an homage to Gleeson's role as Frank in 28 Days Later.
The producers first talked about filming the movie in two parts with a six month separation between them such as The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. This idea was later overthrown as the first part would have ended in the middle of the excitement.
This film is the first Harry Potter film to be rated PG-13 by the MPAA. Rating in other countries were: 12A in the UK, 12 in the Netherlands, M in Australia, PG in Canada, G in Quebec and G in the Philippines.
Jonny Greenwood and Phil Selway of Radiohead, along with Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, bass player Steve Mackey, Jason Buckle (of All Seeing I) and Steve Claydon (of Add N to (X)) appear in the movie as members of the band called The Weird Sisters.
An official picture released by Warner Bros. incorrectly showed Voldemort's father's name to be "Tom Marvolo Riddle" with an unlikely birth year. It was corrected in the final film by digital manipulation.
The "spider" Mad-Eye Moody demonstrates the curses on is a Tailless Whip Scorpion.
British contortionist Richard Rosson was hired to play the Death Eater named Avery. He shot scenes in which Avery suffers torture, but they were cut from the final cinematic edit.
The song Hermione and Hagrid sing as Harry finds Crouch's body is the Hogwarts school song.
The names on the graves in the graveyard scene are of the crew of the movie, in order to avoid legal issues with other names.
In the original posters for the movie, the tagline on the posters read Difficult times lie ahead Harry, which lacks a comma. After a few months, the newer posters corrected this mistake to read Difficult times lie ahead, Harry.
Before being offered this film, Mike Newell was set to direct The Constant Gardener. Coincidentally, that film also stars Ralph Fiennes.
Mike Newell is the first British director in the film series.
Gary Oldman and Ralph Fiennes have both played villains in the Hannibal Lecter films. Oldman played Mason Verger in Hannibal, and Fiennes played Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon.
The band playing in the Maze grandstand scenes is composed of young musicians from the Aylesbury Music Centre in the UK. However, the music itself is dubbed, as the band were playing "magical" instruments. Despite a drum being played on the screen, percussion is notably absent from the audio track.
At the end of the credits you can read the sentence "No dragons were harmed in the making of this movie".
To play Voldemort, a large majority of Ralph Fiennes' facial features (more often than not his rather prominent nose) were digitally altered in post production. To help the visual effects team, Fiennes had colored dots painted onto his face during principal photography.
When Harry and the others are at the Quidditch World Cup, when Amos and Cedric Diggory split from Mr. Weasley and the others, Amos Diggory tells Mr. Weasley that it is "the parting of the ways", the title of chapter thirty-six in the book.
This film went through a total of 12 script drafts