The announcement of the film adaptation of J. K. Rowling's "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" has led to much speculations that the author is planning to tell a brand new story in what would appear as the expanded "Harry Potter" universe. The release of the 128-page book about Newt Scamander's adventures was obviously not intended to simply explain how he managed to author one of the perhaps most recognizable book used in Hogwarts instructions.
The rumor of Rowling telling a bigger story was confirmed with the announcement that the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" film will be the first installment of what will be a five-film franchise. This was followed by the announcement that megastar Johnny Depp has been cast as the dark wizard and Dumbledore rival, Gillert Grindelwald, as reported by Screen Rant.
In an interview with Variety, Rowling discussed the decision to make the book into a multi-film series. The said decision led to the planned film series to span 19 years.
"Originally, to tell you the truth, we said a trilogy as a placeholder. We wanted to be honest with people that it was going to be more than one movie, but we were feeling our way. Then, there came a point in the drafting of our story where I said to David [Yates], 'You know, this feels like five movies', and I think I'm pretty certain about that. It's pretty ambitious to tell it in five to be honest because we're spanning 19 years, but I can see an arc to five - so that's how it happened," the phenomenal author said.
Meanwhile, Screen Rant reported that the second installment of the film franchise will take place in Europe and Johnny Depp was speculated to play the role of Grindelwald. This news excites fans and this would mean an appearance of fan-favorite Albus Dumbledore, who has been confirmed to be in love with the dark wizard.
In fact, during a round table interview, Yates revealed that they cast Depp early this year, and filmed his scenes in the first movie over a two-day period in January. When asked about the decision to have Depp being part of the cast, Yates said:
"Johnny Depp is a real artist and he's created several characters who have really resonated in our popular culture. He's a really brilliant, brilliant actor and we were excited about seeing what he would do with this kind of character. He's fearless, he's imaginative, he's ambitious. We thought he'd do something fun and special. So we went for him purely on that selfish basis, we don't care if he's famous or not famous, we just know he's interesting.
It has also been revealed by the same report from Screen Rant that the first installment is set in 1926, which is 19 years prior to the end of World War II, and as magical people would know, the very day Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald. "Harry Potter" fans were hoping that the “Fantastic Beasts” films will be a sort of Albus’ dark yet mysterious back story.