TheHarry Pottermovie franchise came to a close five years ago withHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, but this magical world is still quite alive and well. Earlier this month, the new stage playHarry Potter and the Cursed Childopened in previews in London, and later this year, authorJ.K. Rowlingwill make her screenwriting debut withFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which is set 70 years before Harry Potter and his friends first set foot in Hogwarts. We’ve know for quite some time that this adventure will be the start of a new trilogy, and it seems that the follow-up,Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2, is already off to a great start.
David Yates, who directed the last fourHarry Pottermovies, is directingFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but earlier this week, he hit the red carpet in London at the premiere of his new filmThe Legend of Tarzan, which opens in theaters worldwide today. A new video interview surfaced onYouTubefrom the red carpet, whereDavid Yatesteases thatJ.K. Rowlinghas already completed the script forFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2, which is tentatively set for release in 2018. Here’s what the director had to say below.
“We’ve done the first one, she’s written the second one, she’s got ideas for the third one. No one quite has ownership of them quite yet, in terms of having a relationship with the material, other than the relationship they’ll have with the movie when it comes out. When we adapted the books, you would always have to leave out things that you hated leaving out, because they didn’t quite work within the structure of the storytelling for the movie, or the movie would be far too long. With this, it’s just pureJo [Rowling], from the first page to the last page.”
Warner Bros. confirmed thatFantastic Beastswill be a trilogy way back in October 2014, with the studio setting tentative release dates in 2018 and 2020 forFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2andFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 3.Fantastic BeastsstarsEddie Redmayneas {Newt Scamander, the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a textbook used at Hogwarts by Harry Potter and his classmates. The cast of thismovie prequelalso includes Katherine Waterston, Ezra Miller, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Jenn Murray, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, Jon Voight and Gemma Chan.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Themopens in 1926 asNewt Scamanderhas just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident…were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds. Take a look atDavid Yates' video interview below, and stay tuned for more onFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
