Harry Potter Spinoff Series Planned as a Trilogy

J.K. Rowling's upcoming Harry Potter universe-set film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is being developed as a trilogy, according to The New York Times. The story, based on one of the textbooks used by Harry Potter and other students at Hogwarts Academy, was originally written by Rowling, creator of the Potter series, as part of a charity fundraiser in 2001. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set 70 years before the events of the Harry Potter series and will focus on Newt Scamander, an expert in magical creatures who wrote the textbook in question. Few details are known, except that the story begins in New York City and takes place in the '30s or early '40s. "Warner Bros. came to me ages ago and said they wanted to do something with Fantastic Beasts. I could see the potential in it," Rowling told franchise star Emma Watson in a Wonderland magazine interview. "I knew something about Newt having written a little something for Comic Relief. I had imagined a little bit of back story for him... So when Warner Bros. came to me and said they wanted to make a film out of the book I had this simultaneous feeling of 'it has a lot of potential,' and another feeling of slight panic that 'I know some things about Newt and I don't want you to ruin that for me!' because I knew who he was. So then I went away and sort of dwelt on what I knew about Newt, not intending to write a script but just trying to collect my thoughts so that I could at least give them the backstory I'd imagined, so that their vision was true to what I knew." The film is expected to go into production in late 2014 or 2015 for an expected release in 2017.  Warner Bros. has relied heavily on the Batman and Harry Potter franchises, as well as other tentpoles from Legendary Pictures, to drive revenue over the last decade, but has none of those things to fall back on in 2014 and 2015.