Harry Potter Spin-off: Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

Intriguing.

This is going to be good.

First!

Aw yeah, milk that franchise. Milk it for all it's worth.

And the milk is delicious

It's at least an interesting brand of milk, making a movie based on what is essentially a footnote in the story of Harry Potter. Heck, seems like it has nothing to do with Harry anyway and more about the wizarding world which I'll be all ears for.

I actually like the sound of this - it involves world-building, places in the magical world outside of Britain, will most likely involve entirely new characters (though we could get a younger!Dumbledore cameo), and is set in a time-period the books basically never touch.

Plus, going from the book, the plot is likely to be "eccentric guy travels around the world looking for weird creatures"

Two things:

A) This is the most baffling movie adaptation announcement I can imagine being made. If there was a modern take on War and Peace which happens during the Iraq War instead of the Napoloenic Wars, it wouldn't leave me scratching my head this much.

B) I'm actually kind of hopeful. JK Rowling has enough weight to throw around that the studio hopefully won't interfere with her script. I really hope they get a good director, though.

It ain't the only spinoff coming.

edited 12th Sep '13 9:07:31 AM by Tuckerscreator

That's strange since the story was already told in one of the films.

This sounds cool though.

Does Warner Brothers not have enough money from the franchise already?

So they are MC Uing the Harry Potter franchise? I guess they have no faith in their DCCU line.

I....can't really explain what I think about this. This is so off-the-wall I have no words. I mean, there's literally nothing to carry this movie beyond world-building. This is the movie equivalent to a DLC expansion pack.

.........

Consider me interested, I guess.

The three brother thing is pretty useless....the shadow play was easily the best part of movie 7, really cleverly done. The Spin-off is intriguing, though. Not being a prequel or sequel is a big plus, as is the fact that the author herself is writing the script. Without the need to press a really elaborate story into the movie format, this might end up being the best Harry Potter movie of the franchise, depending on the quality of the actual story. But I doubt that JKR would have agreed if she didn't have a good idea already.

...it's a textbook. This looks very strongly like just an attempt to get (even more) money out of the series. (I object to WB on this basis. I don't object to JKR, because going by precedent she'd likely give any money the movie made for her to charity. She's pretty awesome.) Don't have high hopes, but I'll keep following the news on this.

edited 12th Sep '13 10:13:00 AM by WarriorEowyn

Yeah, but the movie is not really based on the textbook, but based on the character who wrote said textbook. I think a story about Scamander travelling the world might be a good one (and JK is known for having whole backstories in her head for her characters, which are never mentioned in the book). If nothing else, it will be good for some decent special effects when they try to realize the creatures.

I can't wait for the adaption of the HOLT Sociology: The Study of Human Relationships textbook!

I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about this. Otherwise, this just sounds really weird.

Actually, the way some of JKR's statement reads, it basically states that Warner Bros. came to her first, saying they wanted to use the Fantastic Beasts book for a new movie, and she didn't like their initial plot/characterization suggestions.

So instead she countered with her own ideas, which WB was happy to go along with (...because she made them literally billions of dollars, and they would do almost anything to ensure she continued to do.)

This is incredibly weird but I'm okay with it oddly enough. I'll be interested in seeing how this turns out.

That sums it up for me too.

You think they'll do a movie on Quidditch?

Actually, I'd think a movie about Quidditch might work better- it could be a take on your classic sports story about a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits defeating the Opposing Sports Team (thinking of something revolving around one of the previous Quidditch Cups).

edited 12th Sep '13 12:28:34 PM by Hodor

They'll have make Quidditch be fresh again, though. It kept getting less and less screentime each movie because the appeal was wearing off.

So, it's going to be set in New York in the Roaring Twenties? That's an interesting premise for me.

It was less because the appeal was wearing off and more because the Quidditch scenes are not particularly important for the story in most books. JKR even thought up ways to get around writing too many of them by cancelling Quidditch altogether at the end of the second and for the whole fourth year, getting Harry banned from the team in the fifth year and making him miss one and a half matches during sixths year. There are after all only so many ways you can throw a Quaffel.

But a movie set in this environment might work. Perhaps about saving the Snatch. It could work as a nice parallel to how politics works nowadays.