Warner Brothers still has all the rights to Harry Potter tied up for forever, but now that all the Potter films have been released, what on Earth were they to do with them? Fear not, Potter fans. J.K. Rowling has found a way….
So, who wants a movie version of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?
That’s right, that slim book set that Rowling wrote for charity is coming to the big screen in the form of “author” Newt Scamander’s journey to find those Fantastic Beasts. According to Warner Brothers, it will kick off an entire new film series because they need something to keep them going before they can remake the Potter films, right?
But perhaps more interesting is that J.K. Rowling herself is set to write the screenplay. It turns out this was all her idea—more of how it came about below:
“It all started when Warner Bros. came to me with the suggestion of turning ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ into a film. I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of ‘Fantastic Beasts,’ realized by another writer was difficult. Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it and I already knew a lot about Newt. As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favourite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood.
As I considered Warners’ proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn’t dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros.
Although it will be set in the worldwide community of witches and wizards where I was so happy for seventeen years, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world. The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to anyone who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the films, but Newt’s story will start in New York, seventy years before Harry’s gets underway.”
Warner Brothers will also be distributing a television adaptation of Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. In case you were really broken up about that being ignored or something.
Knowing that Rowling pitched the idea herself is something of a relief, but who know how an in-universe Potter film set nearly a century before the main action is going to play with non-hardcore fans? Only time will tell….
