Whisking Potterheads to the New York of the roaring ’20s, David Yates’ forthcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set to venture into largely uncharted territory for the Harry Potter universe – on screen, at least – and today’s latest featurette pinpoints the creative process bringing the Warner Bros. offshoot to life.
Buoyed by a screenplay penned by J.K. Rowling herself, the snippet features the film’s leading cast and crew explaining just what it means to be dabbling with this most prized universe, along with fleeting peeks at Colin Farrell, Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol suited and booted in period garb.
[zerg]Revolving around Eddie Redmayne’s wizarding prodigy Newt Scamander, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will pick up just as our lead journeys to the Magical Congress of the United States of America. Touting a briefcase brimming with extraordinary creatures, chaos ensues when said beasts escape onto the cobbled streets of a wiz-phobic New York city, leaving Redmayne’s brilliant magizoologist scrambling to find the creatures once more.
Swapping Muggles for No-Majs and England for America, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a decidedly different spin on the Harry Potter lore. Make no mistake, though, with Rowling, Yates and producer David Heyman all involved, the spirit of Warner Bros.’ core magical franchise is still coursing through the veins of Beasts, even if it does take place long before the Boy Who Lived toppled the Dark Lord.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will open on November 18, 2016.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident…were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.