Harry Potter spinoff 'Fantastic Beasts' to Become Movie Trilogy

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is expanding. Like Hagrid's waistline, or some glorious, Hagrid-shaped balloon.

JK Rowling's upcoming Harry Potter spin-off, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, is going to become a movie trilogy. Well, at least according to Warner Bros. studio head Kevin Tsujihara, who is presumably the guy who'd know.

Tsujihara let the cat out of the bag in a profile in the New York Times over the weekend, with the feature describing the upcoming big screen adaptation as "three megamovies". And it would probably have to be, given the content of the book.

Credit: Warner Bros.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set 70 years before the beginning of Harry Potter's story, and will feature "swashbuckling adventurer Newt Scamander."

Rowling herself will write her very first screenplay for the first movie in the series, which is something that might have happened during the Harry Potter film series, provided she hadn't been hard at work on the other books in the saga. Rowling is understandably excited about the project, and even more stoked to be working with Tsujihara.

"When I say he made Fantastic Beasts happen, it isn't PR-speak but the literal truth," said Rowling. "We had one dinner, a follow-up telephone call, and then I got out the rough draft that I'd thought was going to be an interesting bit of memorabilia for my kids and started rewriting!"

The author would go on to add, "When Kevin got the top job, he brought a new energy, which rubbed off. He's a very engaging person, thoughtful and funny."

Fantastic Beasts has no start date just yet, but it wouldn't be all that surprising if Warner Bros. fast-tracked it to release sooner rather than later, given the obscene amounts of money this stands to make. But here's hoping Warner Bros. takes its time and does this right. Lord knows, there's going to be fan revolt if they get this wrong. You know, like there was with the last high-profile, big-screen prequel trilogy that rubbed people the wrong way.

Via: The Guardian