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Warner Bros has announced a new Harry Potter film and video game series.
It’s called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and is based on a Hogwarts textbook of the same name. The screenplay for the film is to be written by JK Rowling herself.
Said movie will be set in New York some 70 years before The Boy Who Lived and his Hogwarts exploits and, according to Rowling, is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world”.
Warner has added that the new IP will also be developed across the Studio’s video game, consumer products and digital initiatives businesses”.
It all started when Warner Bros came to me with the suggestion of turning ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ into a film,” Rowling stated. 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.
As I considered Warner’s 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.
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. I always said that I would only revisit the wizarding world if I had an idea that I was really excited about and this is it.”
