Warner Bros.
The Fantastic Beasts franchise (Harry Potter) has been “parked” by Warner Bros.
Director David Yates confirms that the studio is taking a break from the Fantastic Beasts movies, but that doesn’t mean its heroes won’t come back.
Neither the criticism nor the box office of ‘Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets’ met the expectations of Warner Bros. Discovery. Since its premiere, the shadow of cancellation has hung over the Harry Potter spin-off series, a project that has now been put on hiatus, as revealed by director David Yates in statements to the Inside Total Film podcast (via The Hollywood Reporter).
“It’s all just parked. We got to the end of [Secrets of Dumbledore] and we’re all so proud of that movie, and when it went out into the world, we just needed to sort of stop and pause, and take it easy”, he explained.
“I haven’t spoken to [author J.K. Rowling], I haven’t spoken to [producer] David Heyman, I haven’t spoken to Warner Bros; we’re just taking a pause. It’s quite nice because it allows me to do stuff like [Pain Hustlers]. But I’m sure at some point, Newt may well be back. Who can tell? We haven’t had any in-depth conversations.”
Five movies? A mistake by the author of Harry Potter?
Everyone assumed that Fantastic Beasts would be a saga of five feature films and not a trilogy, although Yates has stated that Warner Bros. never said that there would be so many films. According to the filmmaker, it was author J.K. Rowling who revealed it without that possibility having been discussed (much less signed).
“The idea that there were going to be five films was a total surprise to most of us,” he commented. “[Rowling] just mentioned it spontaneously, at a press screening once. We were presenting some clips of FB1. We’d all signed up for FB1, very enthusiastically. And Jo, bless her, came on … and said, ‘Oh, by the way, there’s five of them.’ We all looked at each other — because no one had told us there were going to be five. We’d committed to this one. So that was the first we’d heard of it.”
At the moment, neither Warner Bros. Discovery nor J.K. Rowling have commented on the matter. The company plans to release a series based on Harry Potter, which will adapt the novels on HBO Max, although there is still no release date. On the other hand, the writers’ strike has ended, but the actors’ strike is still going on.