J.K. Rowling Supplied Black Family Tree for Order of the Phoenix

David Heyman revealed that J.K. Rowling gave WB all the details necessary to craft the Black family tree, as seen in the Order of the Phoenix film.

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The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black certainly lives up to its reputation. The Black family legacy abounds in blood purists and includes a number of Death Eaters, but there’s some good to be found as well. Death Eater Regulus Black reformed, and lived long enough afterwards to destroy one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes. Andromeda Black shirked her family’s ugly reputation, followed her heart, and married Muggle-born Ted Tonks. The pair raised the beloved–if poorly named–Nymphadora, “who prefers to be known by her surname only.” And, of course, who could forget Sirius Black? Friend, godfather, and wrongfully accused criminal on the lam.

Truly, the Black family is as colorful as their name is monochromatic. As such, the team behind the Harry Potter film franchise needed a little help in nailing the details on the Order of the Phoenix set design. Readers will recall the scene in which Harry and Sirius study the tapestry that hangs in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place:

"The tapestry looked immensely old; it was faded and looked as though doxies had gnawed it in places; nevertheless, the golden thread with which it was embroidered still glinted brightly enough to show them a sprawling family tree dating back (as far as Harry could tell) to the Middle Ages."

The film adaptation went above and beyond a moth-eaten tapestry. Instead, the production team crafted an entire room, wherein the Black family tree crept over at least three walls. The sheer vastness of the thing necessitated more details than we see even in the book. On the page, Sirius points out himself, Regulus, and Andromeda. Other names that are mentioned include Uncle Alphard, Phineas Nigellus, Araminta Meliflua, Aunt Elladora, Bellatrix, and the Malfoys.

Image via Warner Bros.

While Sirius explains his relation to each, these names still weren’t enough to take up a whole room on the film set. So the filmmakers went to the source herself, and J.K. Rowling did not disappoint. According to producer David Heyman, the team received an email with Black family details that went back “six generations.”

"“We were hunting names, connecting birthdays, death days. Who was married to whom. It was a job. So it was just sort of incredible–the depth of knowledge of this one. And I think it’s one of the reasons the books work as well as they do, what you read is but the surface of [Rowling’s] knowledge of this universe. It’s incredibly well thought-through. It’s not random.”"

And a good thing the Potterverse isn’t random, otherwise we’d be in for quite a mess of contradictory plot points and other horrors.

As admirable as it is that the filmmakers went to such lengths for accuracy here, I have to wonder why, exactly, they did. The Black family tree is included in one scene, and we don’t exactly get the chance to examine it. I’m more than thrilled that there’s six generations’ worth of Black history, but it’s not as though we got to explore it in the movie any more than we did in the book. Why the attention to detail here when the films so often skimp on other, more important areas of the series?

True, a family tree, however intricate, is still easier to implement than entire characters and plot points. While it may have been time-consuming to create, it didn’t eat up minutes onscreen. So perhaps the explanation is that simple.

Next: J.K. Rowling Defends Hogwarts E-book Release

Either way, Potterheads can be pleased that the Black family tree was so accurate. And we can hope that, in the future, perhaps we’ll be privy to all the nitty-gritty intel on this noble and most ancient house.

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