Harry Potter Spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to Be a Trilogy

[Alex Co]

Harry Potter Spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to Be a Trilogy

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Spinoff film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will be a trilogy according to Warner Bros.

Following last year's news that The New York Times profile on Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127733-Harry-Potter-Spinoff-Film-Series-and-Games-Are-in-the-Works]. Also, it seems Tsujihara himself was quite instrumental in bringing the Harry Potter franchise back to the big screen. According to Rowling, "When I say he made 'Fantastic Beasts' happen, it isn't P.R.-speak but the literal truth...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!"

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will feature "magizoologist" Newt Scamander and is set seven decades before Harry Potter & Co. make their way to Hogwarts The stories themselves are neither prequels or sequels to the boy wizard's adventures, but will be connected to the wizarding world Rowling concocted for Harry Potter.

While Warner Bros. somehow managed to split The Hobbit and make it into a three-part film that works (in my opinion), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a different story altogether since the book itself is just 54-pages short. Then again, with Rowling tapped to be the actual screenwriter for the flicks, she can just use her wizarding magic to conjure up more stories on the fly so it could work. So, there you have it, Harry Potter fans. Prepare for a new trilogy based on the Harry Potter universe but one that won't actually feature The Boy Who Lived.

Source: Variety [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/business/media/warners-ceo-is-bullish-on-the-big-screen.html?hpw&rref=business&_r=0]


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[Queen Michael]

Oh, come on! I realize that they want more opportunities to make Harry Potter movies, but if they're not gonna follow the current reboot trend, couldn't they at least let Rowling write some proper books that they could base the movies on? That way we'd get more from the Potterverse to read!

 

[Genocidicles]

I'll keep an open mind... I preferred the Harry Potter books over the films, but I still thought the films were all right.

I guess with Rowling on board as a screenwriter they can get something entertaining out of a 54 page book. Not amazing, but entertaining at least.

 

[Quazimofo]

I'll keep an open mind... I preferred the Harry Potter books over the films, but I still thought the films were all right.

I guess with Rowling on board as a screenwriter they can get something entertaining out of a 54 page book. Not amazing, but entertaining at least.

....... 54 pages?

A trilogy. Out of a 54 page book.

A trilogy.

Was it written in size 1 font or something? Are the movies going to be an hour long each? Is this an early april fool's prank? Are they going the "world war Z" route (hilarious movie by the way), and having the titles be identical but otherwise very different stories?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash on hollywood's stupidity here, I honestly am wondering how they'll pull this one off. Seems like quite a feat to stretch something like that out. Of course, I don't do much creative writing so what do I know.

I'm intrigued. Wasn't a bit fan of Harry Potter (I just kinda lost interest in it as I grew older after I finished all the books), but the Deathly Hallows movies (and most of the rest) weren't bad. I might check these out at some point in the future, if for no other reason than to see how the hell they made a trilogy out of a book of less than 100 pages.


Also: If the book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is supposed to be a textbook, why is it that short? Sounds more like a comprehensive packet or pamphlet or something.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Was it written in size 1 font or something? Are the movies going to be an hour long each? Is this an early april fool's prank? Are they going the "world war Z" route (hilarious movie by the way), and having the titles be identical but otherwise very different stories?

...

Also: If the book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is supposed to be a textbook, why is it that short? Sounds more like a comprehensive packet or pamphlet or something.

I've got a copy around here somewhere and I've not read it in years but:
- It wasn't written to be "novel" length. It wasn't supposed to be a major thing at all. Its not a whole new story, its a quickly put together comedy book designed to be sold cheaply and in large numbers to make money for charity. Hence the short length.
- Given that its written as a "textbook" this means they can probably write whatever they want for the movies as there's no real story as such. Consequently there could be any number of films since they're going to have to write up actual "stories" from scratch. And there's probably a ton of stories you could write about Newt Scamander and magical creatures. So its not exactly a stretch to be able to make multiple films from it.

That said it does sort of have this hint of "we want more money!" about the whole trilogy thing.

 

[Quazimofo]

Was it written in size 1 font or something? Are the movies going to be an hour long each? Is this an early april fool's prank? Are they going the "world war Z" route (hilarious movie by the way), and having the titles be identical but otherwise very different stories?

...

Also: If the book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is supposed to be a textbook, why is it that short? Sounds more like a comprehensive packet or pamphlet or something.

I've got a copy around here somewhere and I've not read it in years but:
- It wasn't written to be "novel" length. It wasn't supposed to be a major thing at all. Its not a whole new story, its a quickly put together comedy book designed to be sold cheaply and in large numbers to make money for charity. Hence the short length.
- Given that its written as a "textbook" this means they can probably write whatever they want for the movies as there's no real story as such. Consequently there could be any number of films since they're going to have to write up actual "stories" from scratch. And there's probably a ton of stories you could write about Newt Scamander and magical creatures. So its not exactly a stretch to be able to make multiple films from it.

That said it does sort of have this hint of "we want more money!" about the whole trilogy thing.

Yeah, that makes sense then. I haven't read it so I wasn't sure whether it followed any kind of story structure or was written more like a mock textbook.

That last comment in my original post was supposed to be a joke, just to be clear. I'm aware the book wasn't meant to be anything major; just a small comedic spinoff. I just didn't know the thing was so short. I figured it'd be closer to 100 or something along those lines.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

What really interests me would be the idea of this being somewhat similar to the Walking with Dinosaurs mini-series. Newt himself can just be used as a narrator/framing device as he travels to different locals and studies different animals with each movie focusing on one or two main creatures he's looking for but throwing in more common or, lesser beings for him to study and talk about. Also, since this is set decades before Potter it would be reasonable to expect some characters to be alive and active like Ollivander the Wand Maker and, Albus Dumbledore. It would be nice to have characters like them give interviews/ side narrations on specific creatures like Dumbledore talking about the 12 uses of Dragon's Blood and/or Ollivander talking about why he uses Phoenix Tail Feathers, Dragon Heartstrings and, Unicorn Tail Hair.

Just a thought anyway...it would be an interesting direction to take and I honestly don't see this trilogy taking a more standard story structure.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'm going to say the same thing I said when it was announced the Hobbit was going to be a trilogy: Let's wait and see before we judge how good it is.

But in this case I fully expect it to be shit unless they have some really good writers on hand to make more interesting stuff to pad out the 3 movies. As in JK Rowling herself-level writing.

 

[weirdee]

Say what you want, a movie based on a book filled with silly anecdotes of a wizard getting into all sorts of trouble with mystical creatures sounds like fun. They just need to avoid heavily relying on overused "family movie" tropes.

 

[Brian Tams]

We have the Hobbit trilogy to blame for this shit. Soon, we'll be getting a movie for every chapter of a book.

Thanks for subjecting us to this shit, Peter Jackson.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Let me think... Eyup, no Dark Lord in this one, everything's going to be fine and dandy. And, if Weirdee is right about it being about a bumbling wizard getting into trouble while studying animals, this could be a rather fun set of movies to watch.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Oh...I can see this being very bad.

However, I've expected this for a while. I feel sorry for Rowling, in a way, for so long (10 years, more?) the next Harry Potter has always been about to come out. Then all the books and movies were made, and all that has come to an end. Hard to move on from.

OTOH, she's a zillionaire, so there's that.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Frankly? I think this would have a better shot as a television series. The book was a fun little diversion, and there were plenty of legitimately cool-sounding creatures in there. Make it a "monster of the week" kind of thing. Newt Scamander scurrying around, solving some problem and jotting down notes on the creature, etc.

But a trilogy implies that there is gonna be some kind of overarching plotline. I mean, the Scamander thing still works obviously, but I just can't see it working as an epic saga or whatnot.

 

[FPLOON]

So... Is this going to be a trilogy just like how LOTR was... or a trilogy the same way Indiana Jones was (pre-4th and 5th movie)?

Here's hoping for the latter, because it seems to make the most sense out of a book you can read faster than a [quick] video review/retrospective of the Harry Potter movie series...

 

[putowtin]

how?

how can this be a trilogy?!

It's 54 pages writen for charity, and, though enjoyable, you've read it in ten minutes!

Gahhh!

 

[Jak23]

To top it off, I can guarantee that the last one will be split into 2 parts.

 

[iseko]

Harry potter books were good. The movies sucked sooooo muuuuuch baaaaalllzzz. I read the books multiple times. I knew the story from front to back. I still couldn't figure out what was going on half of the time in the movies. They sucked BALLZ.

Conclusion: terrible Idea. I am not going to see this movie

 

[AdamG3691]

I'll keep an open mind... I preferred the Harry Potter books over the films, but I still thought the films were all right.

I guess with Rowling on board as a screenwriter they can get something entertaining out of a 54 page book. Not amazing, but entertaining at least.

....... 54 pages?

A trilogy. Out of a 54 page book.

A trilogy.

Was it written in size 1 font or something? Are the movies going to be an hour long each? Is this an early april fool's prank? Are they going the "world war Z" route (hilarious movie by the way), and having the titles be identical but otherwise very different stories?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash on hollywood's stupidity here, I honestly am wondering how they'll pull this one off. Seems like quite a feat to stretch something like that out. Of course, I don't do much creative writing so what do I know.

I'm intrigued. Wasn't a bit fan of Harry Potter (I just kinda lost interest in it as I grew older after I finished all the books), but the Deathly Hallows movies (and most of the rest) weren't bad. I might check these out at some point in the future, if for no other reason than to see how the hell they made a trilogy out of a book of less than 100 pages.


Also: If the book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is supposed to be a textbook, why is it that short? Sounds more like a comprehensive packet or pamphlet or something.

it was a £1 book she wrote a few years ago for Comic Relief.

it's actually pretty good, I can see how they may be able to squeeze at least one movie out of it.

each entry is a short story or few paragraphs about the non-sapient creatures that inhabit the HP universe, some of which are a few pages long, and they aren't nessecarily things that appear in the main series either, there are things like dementors, but there are also things like lethifold (imagine a blanket made out of living shadows that eats people in the same manner as a snake, specifically constrictors) or the quintapeds (furry, 5 legged, ginger things that can eat a human whole in a few seconds, and are implied to be a bunch of scottish wizards who got so pissed off they literally turned into monsters)

it would be easily possible for Rowling to expand on the lore of the pre-existing creatures, or even add new ones not in the book (she actually left that possibility open in the intro to the book, the premise for it being so short is that it's only a free sample of the full book)

I have to admit though, it would be better as a TV series than a movie, I feel like a lot of the movie's time will end up being various ways of transitioning between the entries, the book implies that very few of the entries were wrote at the same time

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Well, it's not the Monster Book of Monsters, but I'd watch it.

 

[The_Echo]

This is already going to be terrible.

I highly doubt we're about to get a three-part educational series on the creatures of the wizarding world.

Which is what this movie should be. Because that's what the book is.

But nah, we're going to wind up with some off-the-cuff excuse for a plot which, much like the source franchise, has been given a predetermined length before we've even seen if it can stretch that far.