Fantastic Beasts 3 Reveals New Release Date

Fantastic Beasts 3 won't cast another spell until July 2022 as Warner Bros. on Monday set a new release date for the third installment of the Harry Potter prequel-spinoff series. The untitled threequel, again scripted by Wizarding World franchise creator J.K. Rowling and returning Harry Potter saga screenwriter Steve Kloves, shifts back its release date just days after star Johnny Depp exited his role as dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald. In a statement published on November 6, Depp said the studio asked him to resign from the part amid the actor's personal and legal troubles. Warner Bros. is currently recasting the role, which was played by Colin Farrell for much of the first Fantastic Beasts.

Previously scheduled for November 12, 2021, Fantastic Beasts 3 now opens eight months later on July 15, 2022.

The next Fantastic Beasts is the latest high-profile Warner Bros. film bumped from 2021 to 2022, following a scheduling shift that pushed the Matt Reeves-directed The Batman out of October to March 2022. Another DC Films production, Ezra Miller's Justice League spinoff The Flash, was set for July 1, 2022, before being twice-delayed to November 4 of that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Redmayne, who stars as magizoologist Newt Scamander, said early filming on the third installment was like stepping into a "different world" due to new health and safety protocols implemented for shooting amid the pandemic.

"We're so lucky to be back in work and it's interesting. Film crews are amazing people and they're very adaptable people," Redmayne said during an October appearance on The Tonight Show. "So, there's a lot of testing, you know, we're in bubbles and we're all masked, but it's been kind of [fne]. To begin with, I thought, 'How is this going to be?' And it's actually been kind of great. So it's nice to be back at work and I feel very lucky."

Four-time Harry Potter director David Yates, who returned to the Wizarding World for the first two Fantastic Beasts installments, again directs the third film partially set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the 1930s. The presently untitled sequel releases in theaters on July 15, 2022.