Steve Kloves

Biography

Stephen Keith Kloves(born March 18, 1960) is an American filmmaker. He wrote and directed the 1989 film The Fabulous Baker Boys and is mainly known for his adaptations of novels, especially for all but one of the Harry Potter films (the exception being Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and for Wonder Boys, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Kloves, born in Austin, Texas, grew up in Sunnyvale, California, where he graduated from Fremont High School. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles but dropped out when he was not admitted into the film school in his third year.

As an unpaid intern for a Hollywood agent, he gained attention for a screenplay he wrote called Swings. This led to a meeting where he successfully pitched Racing with the Moon (1984).

Warner Bros. sent Kloves a list of novels that the company was considering to adapt as films. The listing included the first Harry Potter novel, which intrigued him despite his usual indifference to these catalogs.

He went on to write the screenplays for the first four films in the series. However, he turned down writing the fifth film, stating that “The fourth film, Goblet of Fire, was really hard to do. I wrote on it for two years.

But it’s not that simple and I don't know that I'll ever fully understand why I didn't do it.” After Michael Goldenberg wrote the screenplay for the fifth film, Kloves then returned to write the sixth, seventh, and eighth installments.

In 2011, Kloves was attached to work on a film adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Since 2016, Kloves produced the Fantastic Beasts films, a spinoff prequel series to the main Harry Potter series. Kloves co-wrote the third installment with J.K. Rowling.

Kloves produced the Andy Serkis-directed movie, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. His daughter, Callie, wrote the screenplay.