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‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’ Will Span 5 Movies, 19 Years

By Jovi Figueroa
Published on: 09:51 PST, Nov 13, 2016

It seems the Harry Potter magic is far from over. J.K. Rowling confirms Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them will be a five-part series and will span 19 years.

Harry Potter fans have known Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them as early as the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, where Newt Scamander was mentioned in passing as the author of the fictional textbook in the Harry Potter canon. After the success of the first Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling published a real Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them book in 2001, which contains the full list of the 85 magical creatures that appear in the Harry Potter series.

We are only a few more days from the release date of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them in movie theaters all over the globe, and everyone is excited to dive once more into the magical world that J.K. Rowling has built over the years.

Many Potterheads were heartbroken when the second half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows marked the end of the Harry Potter franchise but years after the movie, the magic continued with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and now, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.

If you’re anxious that Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them might yet again break your heart, well you’ll be thrilled to know that you’ll have 19 more years of magic to look forward to.

Slash Film confirms that in an interview with J.K. Rowling on the red carpet of the premiere for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the story of Newt Scamander and his book spans 19 years in the Harry Potter universe so Rowling felt it more apt to stretch the story out across five movies, which will take more or less eight years to complete.

We can remember that last March, J.K. Rowling confirmed that Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them will be a trilogy in response to rumors of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child getting adapted into a movie, Daily Mail reports.

At the red carpet event last week, however, it seems J.K. Rowling has finally ironed out the details and the trilogy is getting stretched to five movies.

“Originally, to tell you the truth, we said a trilogy as a placeholder. We wanted to be honest with people that it was going to be more than one movie, but we were feeling our way. Then, there came a point in the drafting of our story where I said to David [Yates], ‘You know, this feels like five movies, and I think I’m pretty certain about that.’ It’s ambitious to tell it in five to be honest because we’re spanning 19 years, but I can see an arc to five – so that’s how it happened. It came out of the material.”

It looks like Newt Scamander will continue to star in the five-part Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them so Eddie Redmayne, the actor who plays the character of Scamander, will be sticking around. And it’s not only Redmayne who will be sticking around for the next eight years–Director David Yates tells Collider that if possible, he would very much like to direct all five Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movies.

“You know, it’s lovely being part of it and I love doing it. How long will I stay with it? I’d like to say I want to stay with it for the whole thing. The only thing that makes my knees wobble a little bit is just the sheer volume. Five movies over eight years is a massive undertaking, so I have to be careful that I’m able to give everything.”

“If there’s any point in that period where I go, ‘You know what, it might be wise to step away for a bit,’ I would, to give someone else a shot. But you do become slightly proprietorial. On Potter, once I’d done one, I enjoyed it so much I felt I had to do another one. Then to finish it, I couldn’t let anyone finish it. I had to finish it. I was territorial. With this, especially as I’ve started it, I sort of… I don’t know … I feel committed to it.”

As of now, Entertainment Weekly reports that David Yates is only signed to do the first two movies of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. But with his commitment to the film, who knows? He might be sticking around with Rowling and Redmayne until the end.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in theaters across the world on November 18.

[Featured Image by Warner Bros.]

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