Warner Brothers has announced that they will be developing a Harry Potter spinoff movie. They’ve announced that the script for the new film will be written by none other than J.K. Rowling herself. However, the new film will NOT be based on the adventures of everyone’s favorite boy wizard. Instead, Rowling will be telling an all-story based on the adventures of Newt Scamander, the author of the Hogwarts textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Rowling actually wrote a brief version of the book in 2001 to benefit the charity Comic Relief.
Rowling had this to say about the new Harry Potter spinoff project, specifically why she has elected to write the script for the new film, and why she felt drawn to use Newt Scamander as the lead character.
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.
The story will also take place seventy years before Harry Potter is even born, but it will definitely take place in the same universe.
It’s not really that surprising that Warner Bros has decided to try and milk the Harry Potter cash cow a bit more. The eight films produced an immense sum of $7.7 billion at the global box office. The plans for Fantastic Beasts seems to be to create a whole new world of merchandise around it, just like with Harry Potter.
I don’t mind the idea of more stories from the Harry Potter universe, since I am such a massive fan of the Potter universe, but I do have my reservations. Chief among them is what this means for the DC movies. Originally the plan was to replace the Harry Potter franchise with the DC Universe heroes leading up to a Justice League film. Of course, that’s still happening, but it does make you wonder why WB execs are trying to bring back the magic so soon.
What do you think of this Harry Potter spinoff idea? Are you excited that we’ll be getting more stories from the Potter universe, written by Rowling herself? Why don’t you just tell us what you think in the comments below?
Source: /Film
