Gary Oldman, who played Sirius Black in the previous Harry Potter films, will return to that role in the upcoming motion picture, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," according to the Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator website.

Doug Urbanski, Oldman's manager, confirmed this on the star's fan website recently.

"I'm so relieved and happy," he said. "I can't put my mind in the place of the producers, but I would've thought that when they read the book, a call to us would've been very high on their list.Obviously, the character of Sirius Black is key."

This came following a long period of conflicting rumors about Oldman's return to the successful franchise.

"Since they had no option for Gary on this film, he was a free agent. Last week, we told them that Gary had another movie, and it was just a question of doing a deal," he said.

When the time came to seriously talk about the part with producer David Heyman, "it was the most mature, simple and friendly negotiation that I've ever done," Urbanski said.

"It's a wonderful role," he said. "Gary read the script last night, and he read part of it to me on the phone this morning. The end of the story is:Gary's in it. It's a terrific script, and he's so happy to be back."

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is currently scheduled for release in June of 2007.