The Harry Potter spinoff, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them‘ is now filming and here is the official cast.
Warner Bros. Pictures is bringing J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts required reading book to the big screen in 2016. Following the release of ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,’ the film takes place seventy years before the events of the Harry Potter series, reealing the adventures of Newt Scamander, as he travels the world documenting information about various magical creatures he encounters.
Filming for ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ has officially started filming at Warner Bros. Studios in leavesden, according to a Warner Bros. press release. The film will also be serving as Rowling’s screenwriting debut. In addition, David Yates, who directed the final four Harry Potter movies will direct the spinoff.
The previously reported main cast members in ‘Fantastic Beats’ have now been confirmed. Here’s the full cast break down:
Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne is an Oscar-winning actor who is known for his role in ‘The Theory of Everything’. Redmayne will be playing Newt Scamander, described as “the wizarding world’s preeminent magizoologist, who stops in New York following his travels to find and document magical creatures.”
Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol
Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol will be joining the cast of ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’. Waterson who is known for her role in ‘Inherent Vice and Sudol, who is known for her role in ‘Transparent’, will play the sisters Tina and Queenie. Rowling has revealed (via her Twitter account) that pair – who encounter Newt when he travels to New York – have the last name of Goldstein and thus, are distantly related to Anthony Goldstein (a Ravenclaw student in the Harry Potter series).
Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell who is known for his role in ‘True Detective’ will play Graves. Details surrounding this new character have been kept under-wraps.
Dan Fogler
Dan Fogler from ‘Balls of Fury’ will play Jacob, a Muggle whom Newt becomes friends with during his adventures.
Ezra Miller
Ezra Miller worked on the movie ‘The Perks of Being a Wall Flower’. Now she will play Mary Lou, another character that has not been officially announced.
Faith Wood-Blagrove
Faith Wood-Blagrave will play Modesty. Wood-Blagrove was discovered at an open casting call for the ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’. Nearly 1,000 aspiring actors auditioned for a this secret role.
The ofificiall synopsis for ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ have not been released. However, Rowling has gone on the record by saying that her script will not serve as a prequel to Harry Potter’s story. Rowling, back when she confirmed ‘Fantastic Beats’ as a real movie, referred to Scamander as the “supposed author” of the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ textbook, hinting that one or more of the earlier mentioned charcters will also play a significant role in the book’s development. In addition, Rowling has referred to ‘Fantastic Beats’ as being an “extension of the wizarding world,” and that is easily the film’s biggest selling point: it represents an opportunity for Harry Potter fans to spend more time in the mythical and magical universe.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in U.S. theaters on November 18th, 2016. Release dates for the potential sequels have already been claimed on November 16th, 2018 and November 20th, 2020.
Source: Warner Bros. Pictures