'Fantastic Beasts' producer says there is a 'treat in store' with the upcoming films

Record ID: 79707

  • Title: 'Fantastic Beasts' producer says there is a 'treat in store' with the upcoming films
  • Date: 8th November 2016
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 07, 2016) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DAVID HEYMAN, PRODUCER, SAYING: "People talk about Harry Potter being a franchise, it was never a franchise for me. It was never a franchise for Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell, David Yates, Chris Columbus. It was about making films and about making the very best films we could. About pushing the envelope and never settling. Always being ambitious for the work itself. If the films are good the rest will follow. But we just focus on the films right now."
  • Embargoed: 23rd November 2016 19:25
  • Keywords: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Colin Farrell Eddie Redmayne Katherine Waterson Ezra Miller Dan Fogler Alison Sudol J.K. Rowling Harry Potter David Heyman David Yates
  • Location: UNKNOWN FILM LOCATIONS / NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • City: UNKNOWN FILM LOCATIONS / NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Film
  • Reuters ID: LVA00A57L0JM5
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The gates to J.K. Rowling's wizarding world are set to re-open with "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," but the jury is still out on whether the five-movie spin-off will conjure up the magic that turned "Harry Potter" into a global entertainment phenomenon.
    With no best-selling books this time around, "Fantastic Beasts," featuring a story penned by Rowling, will test if the young audience that drove eight Potter films to gross $7 billion worldwide for Warner Bros., will turn out for a film set 70 years before Harry Potter first entered Hogwarts school.
    Set in New York City in 1926, the film that will be released worldwide on Nov. 18 holds big potential. If successful, it could dramatically expand the Potter brand of books, toys, costumes and theme parks as Rowling geographically extends a magical world previously confined to the United Kingdom.
    Ten days ahead of release, with no reviews yet, Bock and other analysts are predicting a $75 million-$100 million opening weekend for the movie in North America - about half the gross for the last Potter movie in 2011.
    Published in 2001, "Fantastic Beasts" began life as a slim textbook, belonging to Harry Potter, listing imaginary creatures and illustrated with basic pen and ink drawings.
    Warner Bros. later approached Rowling to turn the book into a movie. She came up with a story that centers on actor Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander, a "magizoologist" whose case full of creatures escapes.
    The new story was welcomed by long-time Potter producer David Heyman and director David Yates.
    "One of the great pleasures of working on Fantastic Beasts is that people have not read the books so the story is a surprise. And I think that always people to come into with different expectations or different preconceptions and I think that's really exciting. So, I would rather not tell you what's coming up, but all I can tell you is that yes, we'll see more people from, that connects to the Harry Potter universe and the connections will be more explicit," said Heyman.
    Little is known about the four future films, or how they will link up to the original Harry Potter stories. But Rowling has said they will trace the rise of a powerful dark wizard named Gellert Grindelwald, who was famous in the Potter world for duelling beloved Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in 1945.
    "I think there are various ways that it is connective tissue. In this first film in terms of practical connective tissue it's limited. But we hear mention and see a couple of characters who we'll feature later on and we've heard later in - about on in the 'Harry Potter' films. Of course, Newt Scamander and Fantastic Beasts and where to find them was a Hogswarts textbook, but the connections are a little deeper," said Heyman.
    "As the series develops, if we're fortunate to make more of these and I'm working right now, we're working right now on the script of the second. Those connections become more overt and explicit and I think really, really exciting. So there is a treat in store," Heyman added.
    Just as the Potter movies, "Fantastic Beasts" showcases Rowling's imagination, from typewriters tapping away by themselves to computer-generated creatures like the mischievous Niffler or the rhinoceros-like Erumpent.
    But the darker storyline and a cast of little-known actors playing adult characters could limit its appeal to families.
    While there is no novel tie-in, a book version of Rowling's screenplay is currently 12th on the Amazon.com best- sellers list ahead of its release next week.
    Publishers Scholastic Inc. are releasing a series of related books and character guides but the original "Fantastic Beasts" will not be reissued until March 2017, said Ellie Berger, president of Scholastic's Trade division.
    Whether there will be books to accompany future films will depend on Rowling.
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