"Fantastic Beasts" Director Shares Update on Franchise

David Yates, who directed all three Fantastic Beasts movies and four Harry Potter movies, has shared an update on the spinoff franchise.

The “Fantastic Beasts” franchise was inspired by the book, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and serves as a spin-off and prequel to the Harry Potter film series. 

The prequel franchise is set to consist of five movies and will take place decades before the adventures of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. It is centered around Scamander, a magizoologist who becomes a confidant of a young Albus Dumbledore amid the rise of the Hitler-esque Grindelwald. 

The cast stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, Jude Law as Albus Dumbledore, and Mads Mikkelsen as the main villain, Gellert Grindelwald, a role previously played by Johnny Depp. 

It also features Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, William Nadylam, and Katherine Waterston. 

The movie is directed by David Yates and award-winning author J.K. Rowling. Rowling also penned the script along with Steve Kloves, which was based on a screenplay by her. The movie was produced by Heyman, Kloves, Lionel Wigram, Tim Lewis, and Rowling.

Three movies have been released — “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” (2016), “The Crimes of Grindelwald” (2018) and “The Secrets of Dumbledore” (2022) — but the lackluster box office returns to the third entry ($407 million worldwide) led many “Harry Potter” fans to question if two more films would become a reality.

In a new interview with Total Film magazine, Yates stated the “Fantastic Beasts” movie franchise is “parked,”.

“With ‘Beasts,’ it’s all just parked,” he noted. “We made those three movies, the last one through a pandemic, and it was enormous fun but it was tough. We were actually filming when there wasn’t a vaccine. Thankfully, no one got sick, but we did have the most detailed protocols in place.”

“We’re all so proud of [‘Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore’] and when it went out into the world, we just needed to sort of stop and pause and take it easy,” Yates added.

Yates directed all three “Fantastic Beasts” movies, with Rowling penning each entry (she had sole screenwriting credit on the first two movies and was joined by Steven Kloves on the third). 

The filmmaker is a veteran of the “Harry Potter” universe having also directed every “Potter” movie from “Order of the Phoenix” through “Deathly Hallows Part 2.” 

He told Total Film that Rowling’s five-film plan for “Fantastic Beasts” was never communicated to him or others when they started work on the first movie in the franchise.

“The idea that there were going to be five films was a surprise to most of us,” Yates pointed out. “Jo just mentioned it spontaneously, at a press screening once. No one had told us there were going to be five, we’d committed to the first one… I’m sure at some point, we’ll be back. But yeah, I haven’t spoken to Jo, I haven’t spoken to [producer] David Heyman, I haven’t spoken to Warner Bros; we’re just taking a pause. It’s quite nice. It allows me to do stuff like this.”

“Stuff like this” refers to Yates’ latest project, the Netflix pharmaceutical crime drama “Pain Hustlers”. The movie stars Chris Evans and Emily Blunt and was bought by the streamer in a $50 million deal.

“Having spent such a long time making films about wizards, I wanted to do a film in the real world and a social-issue driven, but one that wasn’t too earnest and serious,” Yates previously said before the movie’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

“I wanted to tell a story that was entertaining and funny in a subversive kind of way. I’m moving from a heightened world of J.K. Rowling, but I’m not going straight to kitchen-sink drama. The characters here are so heightened and crazy and the world is so intense.”

“Pain Hustlers” streams October 27 on Netflix.