After months of speculation, Academy Award winning actor, Eddie Redmayne, will take the helm of the new Harry Potter spin-off movie that Warner Bros. Studio announced last Monday. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them will also be the series' author's screenwriting debut.
The new film will not have any of the teenage wizard characters in the Harry Potter movie franchise. Redmayne will take on the role of Newt Scamander, the author of the textbook the movie is named after which was one of the required readings that young wizards had to study when they went to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The events in this new movie will take place 70 years before Harry Potter was born. The book was first published in 2001 with most of the profits going to charity. Sales skyrocketed by more than 100,000 percent, according to reports, when Rowling announced that she would also pen the film adaptation.
Fantastic Beasts will be a trilogy of films and will be directed by Harry Potter franchise veteran director, David Yates.
On the casting of Redmayne as Scamander, Yates has nothing but praise for the actor and what he will bring to the role of the famed Potterverse magizoologist -- one who hunts and studies magical creatures.
"Eddie is a fearless actor, brimming with invention, wit and humanity. I couldn't be more excited about the prospect of working with him as we start this new adventure in J.K. Rowling's wonderful world, and I know she feels the same way," Yates said in a press release.
The first of the Fantastic Beasts is scheduled to be released in theatres on Nov. 18, 2016. Incidentally, Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire also debuted on Nov. 18. This new film will play exactly 11 years after the fourth movie in the Harry Potter franchise.
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