Michael Goldenberg (born January 18, 1965) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and film director. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Carnegie Mellon College of Drama in 1986.
Goldenberg’s early film work includes writing and directing the romantic drama Bed of Roses (1996). He co‑wrote the screenplay for the science‑fiction film Contact (1997) and co‑adapted the live‑action version of Peter Pan (2003) with director P. J. Hogan.
He is best known for writing the screenplay for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), the fifth installment in the Harry Potter film series. This assignment was notable because it marked the only Harry Potter film in the series whose screenplay was not written by Steve Kloves.
Goldenberg later contributed to the superhero genre as a screenwriter for Green Lantern (2011), rewriting the script for director Martin Campbell and co‑authoring a Green Lantern prequel comic special with Geoff Johns. He has also been involved in unproduced projects, including an unused Wonder Woman screenplay and a draft for the 2020 adaptation of Artemis Fowl, for which he was not ultimately credited.
Throughout his career, Goldenberg has worked across film, theatre, and comics, and remains active in the industry from 1986 to the present.
