At Warner Bros’ global fan event for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them today, the studio made a big announcement: There will be five Fantastic Beasts films total, instead of the trilogy, as originally thought.
The Mary Sue and HitFix provided live updates, rounding up a couple of key points about the growing movie franchise:
- Albus Dumbledore “features a little bit in a wonderful scene” between Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), according to director David Yates.
- Gellert Grindelwald, Dumbledore’s former friend (and object of his affection) turned dark wizard, will have a bigger part in these movies than previously expected: He’s “sort of in the background [of Fantastic Beasts],” Yates says, “and he’s going to become a much more prominent part of the stories going forward.”
- After Newt Scamander presumably finds at least some of the fantastic beasts in the first movie, his journeys will take him to other capital cities. More from Yates: “We next see Newt in another big capitol city and it’s not going to be New York, it’s somewhere else entirely,” he said. “And Jo has actually written the script and it’s just as magical and just as marvelous as the first one, but very different, which is so exciting for all of us.”
Amid rumors that there would be “at least” five films, Rowling confirmed on Twitter that they’re stopping at five:
Not ‘at least.’ Five. Five movies. https://t.co/61YvDIKPsG
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 13, 2016
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in theaters November 18.