J.K. Rowling Has Completed Script For Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them Sequel

During Monday's premiere of The Legend of Tarzan, director David Yates was asked about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them — which he is also directing — and revealed that the script for the sequel has already been penned by J.K. Rowling.

"She's done the first one. She's written the second one," Yates told GSNews. "She's got ideas for the third one."

Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter books, is making her screenwriting debut with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

As for Yates, who previously directed the final four films in the Harry Potter franchise - The Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince, and parts 1 and 2 of The Deathly Hallows, he's sees a huge benefit with tackling Rowling's lesser read material.

"No one quite has ownership of [the story] yet in terms of having a relationship with the material, other than the relationship they'll have with the movie when it comes out," Yates explained. "So, it's sort of lovely in a way. When we adapted the [Harry Potter] books, you would have to leave things out that you hated leaving 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."

(via Screenrant)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an all-new adventure returning us to the wizarding world created by J.K. Rowling. Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) stars in the central role of wizarding world magizoologist Newt Scamander, under the direction of David Yates, who helmed the last four Harry Potter blockbusters. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident…were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt's fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them also stars Katherine Waterston (Steve Jobs, Inherent Vice) as Tina; Tony Award winner Dan Fogler (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) as Jacob; Alison Sudol (Dig, Transparent) as Tina's sister, Queenie; Ezra Miller (Trainwreck) as Credence; two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton (In America, Sweet and Lowdown) as Mary Lou; Oscar winner Jon Voight (Coming Home, TV's Ray Donovan) as Henry Shaw, Sr.; Ron Perlman (the Hellboy films) as Gnarlack; Carmen Ejogo (Selma) as Seraphina; Jenn Murray (Brooklyn) as Chastity; young newcomer Faith Wood-Blagrove as Modesty; and Colin Farrell (True Detective) as Percival Graves.

Warner Bros. Pictures has slated Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for worldwide release in 2D and 3D in select theatres and IMAX on November 18, 2016.