Fantastic Beasts director David Yates is out on the promo trail to discuss his new film Tarzan which opens in theaters this weekend, and inevitably, the media is asking him questions about his upcoming Wizarding World spinoff.
At Tarzan’s red carpet premiere in Hollywood this week, Yates offered a couple of interesting tidbits about this November’s Fantastic Beasts as well as the upcoming sequel and threequel. He also touched on how this trilogy differs from the Harry Potter adaptations (remember: he directed the final four movies):
We’ve done the first [Fantastic Beasts movie], [J.K. Rowling]’s written the second one, she’s got ideas for the third one. No one has ownership of it quite yet, of having a relationship with the material, other than the relationship they’ll have with the movie when it comes out.
When we adapted the [Harry Potter] books, you always had to leave out things you hated to leave out because they didn’t quite work within the structure of the storytelling of the movie, or the movie would just be far too long.
With this, it’s just pure Jo, from the first page to the last page.
Rowling herself confirmed the sequel script news by retweeting a story from Digital Spy.
WB previously planted flags for Fantastic Beasts 2 and Fantastic Beasts 3 in November 2018 and November 2020, meaning the trilogy will release a new film every other year beginning this fall. Rumor has it that the sequel will be set in Paris during the year 1926. (And perhaps the threequel will take place in yet another city?)
Rowling has been a busy writer over the past few years, having penned two Fantastic Beasts movies, several new additions to Pottermore, and at least four Cormoran Strike novels (the next is expected in the next year or two).
As Yates says, the fact that Rowling herself is writing the screenplays is very exciting. We wouldn’t be looking forward to Fantastic Beasts as much as we are if this wasn’t Rowling’s own story.