Warner Bros. is set to shoot JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them at its studios in Leavesden in the UK. The release date for the film has been set for November 2016.
The Harry Potter spin-off is based on a 54-page textbook set for Hogwarts pupils, which was published in 2001. The book is about the magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe. It purports to be Harry Potter’s copy of the textbook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone the first novel of the Harry Potter series.
Rowling is writing the screenplay for the new film, which is likely to be the first in a series that follows the adventures of Newt Scamander, who devotes his career to the pursuit of magical creatures. The director or cast for the film is yet to be revealed by the studio.
The news that the film is to shoot in the UK was announced on 2 July by Culture Secretary Sajid Javid at the launch of the Creative Industries Council’s new strategy to grow the UK’s position as a world leader for the creative industries.
The strategy, dubbed Create UK, has recognised five priority areas to work on for the future triumph of the creative industries: education and skills; better access to finance for creative companies; communications infrastructure; intellectual property; and doubling the value of creative industries service exports from Ł15.5 billion in 2011 to Ł31 billion in 2020.
