Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Mike Newell |
| Produced by | David Heyman |
| Screenplay by | Steve Kloves |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Patrick Doyle |
| Cinematography | Roger Pratt |
| Editing by | Mick Audsley |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 6 November 2005 (Odeon Leicester Square) 18 November 2005 (United Kingdom and United States) |
| Running time | 157 minutes |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $150 million |
| Money made | $896.4 million |
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a 2005 fantasy film directed by Mike Newell and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, based on J. K. Rowling's 2000 novel of the same name. Produced by David Heyman and written by Steve Kloves, it is the sequel to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter film series. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, with Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger. Its story follows Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts as he is chosen by the Goblet of Fire to compete in the Triwizard Tournament.
The film is the first of the series to receive a PG-13 certificate in the US, and a 12A in the UK. Filming began in early 2004. The Hogwarts scenes were shot at the Leavesden Film Studios. Five days after its release, the film had grossed over US$102 million at the North American box office, which is the third-highest first-weekend tally for a Harry Potter film behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2. Goblet of Fire enjoyed an immensely successful run at the box office, earning $896 million worldwide, which made it the highest-grossing film of 2005 and the sixth-highest-grossing film in the Harry Potter series.
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction, and won the BAFTA Award for Best Production Design. Goblet of Fire was the second film in the series to be released in IMAX. The film is one of the best-reviewed instalments within the series, being praised for the higher level of maturity and sophistication of its characters, plotline, tone, screenplay, and the performances of the lead actors. It was followed by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2007.
Plot
Harry Potter awakens from a nightmare wherein a man named Frank Bryce is killed after overhearing Lord Voldemort conspiring with Peter Pettigrew and another man. While Harry attends the Quidditch World Cup match between Ireland and Bulgaria with the Weasleys and Hermione, Death Eaters terrorise the camp, and the man who appeared in Harry's dream summons the Dark Mark.
At Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore introduces ex-Auror Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He also announces that the school will host the Triwizard Tournament, in which three magical schools compete across three challenges. Only wizards aged seventeen and above may compete. The Goblet of Fire selects "champions" to take part in the competition: Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff representing Hogwarts, Viktor Krum representing the Durmstrang Institute from Eastern Europe, and Fleur Delacour representing the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic from France. The Goblet unexpectedly selects Harry as a fourth champion. Dumbledore is unable to pull the underage Harry out of the tournament, as Ministry official Barty Crouch Sr. insists the champions are bound by a contract after being selected.
For the first task, each champion must retrieve a golden egg guarded by a dragon. Harry succeeds in retrieving his egg, which contains information about the second challenge. On Christmas Eve, a formal dance event known as the Yule Ball takes place; Harry and Ron attend with Parvati and Padma Patil, Harry's crush Cho Chang attends with Cedric, and Hermione attends with Viktor, making Ron jealous.
The second task involves the champions diving underwater to rescue someone valuable to them. Harry finishes third, but is promoted to second behind Cedric due to his "moral fibre", after saving Fleur's sister Gabrielle as well as Ron. Afterwards, Harry discovers the corpse of Crouch Sr. in the forest. While waiting for Dumbledore in his office, Harry discovers a Pensieve, which holds Dumbledore's memories. Harry witnesses a trial in which Durmstrang headmaster and former Death Eater Igor Karkaroff confesses to the Ministry of Magic names of other Death Eaters after Voldemort's defeat. When he names Severus Snape, Dumbledore vouches for Snape's innocence; Snape turned spy against Voldemort before the latter's downfall. After Karkaroff names Barty Crouch Jr., a devastated Crouch Sr. imprisons his son in Azkaban. Exiting the Pensieve, Harry realizes that Crouch Jr. is the man he saw in his dream.
For the final task, the champions must reach the Triwizard Cup, located in a hedge maze. After Fleur and Viktor are incapacitated, Harry and Cedric reach the cup together. The two together grab the cup, which turns out to be a Portkey and transports them to a graveyard where Pettigrew and Voldemort are waiting. On Voldemort's orders, Pettigrew murders Cedric with the Killing Curse and performs a ritual that rejuvenates Voldemort, who then summons the Death Eaters. Voldemort releases Harry and challenges him to a duel to prove he is the better wizard. Harry tries the Expelliarmus charm to block Voldemort's attempted Killing Curse. The beams from their wands entwine and Voldemort's wand disgorges the last spells it performed. The spirits of the people he murdered are seen in the graveyard: Cedric, Frank Bryce, and Harry's parents. This distracts Voldemort and his Death Eaters, allowing Harry to use the Portkey to escape with Cedric's body.
Harry tells Dumbledore that Voldemort returned and is responsible for Cedric's death. Moody takes Harry back to his office to interrogate him about Voldemort, inadvertently blowing his cover when he asks Harry about a graveyard, despite Harry not mentioning a graveyard. Moody reveals that he submitted Harry's name to the Goblet of Fire and manipulated Harry to ensure he would win the tournament. Moody then attempts to kill Harry, but Dumbledore, Snape, and Minerva McGonagall subdue him. The teachers force Moody to drink Veritaserum, and he reveals that he is not actually Moody and that the real Moody is imprisoned in a magical trunk as his Polyjuice Potion wears off. The impostor Moody is revealed as Crouch Jr. and returned to Azkaban.
Dumbledore reveals to the students that Voldemort killed Cedric, although the Ministry of Magic opposes the revelation. Dumbledore later visits Harry in his dormitory, apologizing to him for the dangers he endured. Harry reveals that he saw his parents in the graveyard; Dumbledore names this effect as "Priori Incantatem". Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons bid farewell to each other.
Cast
- Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter: A 14-year-old British wizard famous for surviving his parents' murder at the hands of the evil dark wizard Lord Voldemort as an infant, who now enters his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
- Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley: Harry's best friend at Hogwarts and a younger member of the Weasley wizarding family.
- Emma Watson as Hermione Granger: Harry's other best friend and the trio's brains.
- Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid: The gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts.
- Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort:
A dark wizard intent on conquering the Wizarding World and the leader of the Death Eaters. Fiennes commented on the difficulty of playing someone who is "the essence of evil," and discussed giving a humanity to Voldemort in order for him to be "deeply, truly evil", citing the character's unhappy childhood as fuel for "anger, jealousy and hatred". Newell cited Fiennes' ability to play "a realistic and frightening villain" instead of "a simple caricature" as a reason for his casting. - Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore:
The headmaster of Hogwarts and one of the greatest wizards of all time. Gambon commented on the state of the character in the film, "Dumbledore is no longer in control and he's frightened." Newell compared Gambon's performance with Richard Harris' iteration in earlier films, showing the character as "fallible and not omnipotent" and "inadequate rather than super-adequate." - Brendan Gleeson as Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody:
A famous ex-Auror appointed by Dumbledore as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. Gleeson referred to Moody as "a gunslinger with a wand," whose "great wounds have damaged him greatly." Heyman found Gleeson brought "a great balance of ferociousness and humour" to what he called a "complex, challenging character." - Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy: Draco's father and a former Hogwarts pupil of Slytherin House.
- Gary Oldman as Sirius Black: Harry's godfather, who had escaped from Azkaban after being wrongly imprisoned for twelve years and is now a fugitive.
- Alan Rickman as Severus Snape: The Potions teacher at Hogwarts and head of Slytherin.
- Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall: Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, the Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts and head of Gryffindor.
- Timothy Spall as Peter Pettigrew: The Death Eater who betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort.
Several actors from the previous film reprise their roles in Goblet of Fire. James and Oliver Phelps play Fred and George Weasley, Ron's twin brothers, and Bonnie Wright portrays their sister Ginny, while Mark Williams plays their father, Arthur Weasley. Jason Isaacs appears as Lucius Malfoy, and Tom Felton portrays his son Draco, Harry's rival in Slytherin, while Jamie Waylett and Joshua Herdman appear as Crabbe and Goyle, Draco's minions. Matthew Lewis and Devon Murray play Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan, respectively, two Gryffindor students in Harry's year. David Bradley appears as Argus Filch, Hogwarts' caretaker, and Warwick Davis is credited as Professor Filius Flitwick, maintaining the younger appearance of the character previously seen in the third film. Shirley Henderson reprises her role as Moaning Myrtle, a Hogwarts ghost, and Robert Hardy returns as Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic.
Robert Pattinson replaced stunt performer/actor Joe Livermore as Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory, who made a brief appearance in the previous film during a Quidditch sequence, while Jeff Rawle appears as his father Amos. David Tennant plays Barty Crouch Jr, a Death Eater, and Roger Lloyd-Pack portrays his father Barty Crouch Sr, head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and tournament organiser. Katie Leung appears as Cho Chang, a Ravenclaw student and Harry's love interest. Clémence Poésy plays Beauxbatons champion Fleur Delacour, while Stanislav Ianevski portrays Durmstrang champion and Quidditch star Viktor Krum. Miranda Richardson plays The Daily Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter. Predrag Bjelac appears as Igor Karkaroff, Headmaster of Durmstrang and a former Death Eater, while Frances de la Tour plays Olympe Maxime, Headmistress of Beauxbatons. Shefali Chowdhury and Afshan Azad play Parvati and Padma Patil, Harry and Ron's dates to the Yule Ball, respectively. Eric Sykes appears as Frank Bryce, the caretaker at the Riddle family house.
Differences from the book
With the Goblet of Fire novel almost twice the length of Prisoner of Azkaban, the writers and producers reduced certain scenes and concepts to make the transition from page to screen. Director Mike Newell described the problem as one of "compressing a huge book into the compass of a movie". This was achieved by "putting aside" all the components of the novel which did not directly relate to Harry and his journey.
Goblet of Fire is the first film adaptation not to begin at Privet Drive; after the opening sequence, Harry awakens at the Burrow on the morning of the Quidditch World Cup.
The gameplay at the Quidditch World Cup was removed for timing reasons, leaving an abrupt temporal jump which some reviewers considered awkward or "rushed". In the book, Harry and many of the Weasleys support Ireland, while in the film Harry and Ron support Bulgaria. Nonetheless, both of them admire the Bulgarian seeker Viktor Krum.
Other scenes are shortened and amalgamated to include only the most essential plot details. For example, the three Death Eater trials Harry witnesses in the Pensieve are merged into one sequence. The characters of Bill Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Ludo Bagman, Winky, Narcissa Malfoy, and Bertha Jorkins are all absent, as well as Dobby, who was supposed to help Harry obtain Gillyweed for the second task. In place of Dobby, this scene was changed to involve Neville Longbottom. There is no train scene at the end where Rita Skeeter is revealed to be an illegal, unregistered Animagus. Harry is never seen either receiving or giving away the 1,000 galleons in prize winnings. All of Sirius Black's lines are condensed into a single fireside conversation. The scene in which Crouch Jr. is taken back to Azkaban is different from the book, in which he was "killed" by a Dementor summoned by Cornelius Fudge. There is also no conversation in which Fudge refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned, leaving this to be explained in the next film.
Distribution
Lawsuit
In the run up to the film, Warner Bros. approached a Canadian folk group called the Wyrd Sisters to obtain permission to use the name The Weird Sisters for its Harry Potter Band. When a deal could not be made, the Canadian band filed a US$40-million lawsuit against Warner Bros., the North American distributor of the film, as well as the members of the in-movie band (members of Radiohead and Pulp, among others) for the misuse of their group's name. (In a deleted scene, they are simply introduced as "the band that needs no introduction".) The Canadian band also brought an injunction to stop the release of the film in its country as it contained a performance by the identically named fictional rock band. An Ontario judge dismissed this motion, and to avoid further controversy Warner Bros. rendered the band unnamed in the film and many derived products. However, the Winnipeg-based group continued to pursue the lawsuit; lead singer Kim Baryluk stated in her claim that "consumers will assume that the smaller and less famous Canadian band is trying to take advantage of the Harry Potter fame by copying the Harry Potter band's name when in fact the reverse is true." The injunction was dismissed, and the band was ordered to pay costs. As of March 2010[update], the lawsuit has been settled, the details sealed.
See also
In Spanish: Harry Potter y el cáliz de fuego (película) para niños
