Fantastic sequel to be made

Hot on the heels of the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child comes news of another JK Rowling-inspired follow-up – and this comes more than three months prior to the release of its predecessor! Warner Bros have just announced that there is to be a sequel to the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

It also confirms rumours that the franchise will eventually become a trilogy, telling the story of ‘magizoologist’ Newt Scamander, played by Brit actor Eddie Redmayne.

The sequel will again be penned by Rowling herself – the original marks her screenwriting debut – with director David Yates at the helm. The pair have enjoyed a long and successful partnership, as Yates also directed Order Of The Phoenix, Half Blood Prince and both Deathly Hallows instalments.

In a recent interview, Yates said: “There is a mention of some characters that we know and love from previous movies, but we only talk about them fleetingly. In the next movie, part two, we’ll get to meet one of them in a significant way. He’s much younger than he used to be but he’ll be coming back.”

One major difference between Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter is that the former hasn’t had to be adapted from a novel, something that Yates clearly relishes: “When we adapted the books, we’d always have to leave out things that you hated leaving out because they didn’t quite work in the structure of the storytelling for the movie.”

It seems that the world Rowling first dreamed up all those years ago knows no bounds. On top of everything else, she has also branched out into the West End with the opening of the two-part play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.

Fantastic Beasts will hit the screens on November 18, with the sequel expected to follow on November 16, 2018.