It seems Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has been struck with the killing curse. Actor Eddie Redmayne, who played magizoologist Newt Scamander in the J.K. Rowling-penned trilogy, told ComicBook this week that moviegoers “probably have” seen the last of his character on the big screen after Warner Bros. Discovery rebranded the Wizarding World franchise to simply Harry Potter. And now Jude Law, who portrayed the younger Dumbledore in two of the three Fantastic Beasts installments, suggests Warner Bros. has abandoned plans for the fourth and fifth Fantastic Beasts movies.
“I know it’s certainly on hold,” Law told Variety. “My guess would be that, now that they’re doing Harry Potter as a TV show, they’ll probably put their energy into that. I certainly haven’t heard that there’s anything on the horizon.”
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Even before the first Fantastic Beasts released in 2016, author and series creator Rowling announced a five-movie plan for the spinoffs set nearly a century before the events of the Harry Potter films. Fantastic Beasts, based on the fictional textbook within the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, went on to gross $814 million at the global box office, while 2018’s The Crimes of Grindelwald dropped to $654 million. 2021’s The Secrets of Dumbledore is the lowest-grossing Wizarding World movie at $407 million worldwide.
[RELATED: Warner Bros. Rebrands the Wizarding World Franchise]
“I think they probably have [seen the last of Newt],” Redmayne told ComicBook. “That was a very frank answer, but yeah. And that’s as far as I know. I mean, you’d have to speak to the people at Warner Bros. and J.K Rowling, but as far as I know, that’s it.”
In 2020, Redmayne issued a statement saying he disagreed with Rowling’s anti-trans tweets, joining Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Evanna Lynch, and Bonnie Wright in speaking out against the author’s comments. Rowling scripted the first two Fantastic Beasts and co-wrote the third with Harry Potter veteran scribe Steve Kloves.
The HBO Harry Potter TV show is the first live-action project to be greenlit since Secrets of Dumbledore. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has described the Harry Potter franchise as a priority for the company after the eight-movie saga grossed nearly $8 billion between 2001 and 2011.
The television series is described as a “faithful adaptation” of Rowling’s seven books, with the author serving as executive producer via her Brontë Film. HBO, in association with Warner Bros. Television, is currently casting actors for the series from showrunner and executive producer Francesca Gardiner (HBO’s Succession) and executive producer and director Mark Mylod (Game of Thrones and The Last of Us).
“The series will feature a new cast to lead a new generation of fandom, full of the fantastic detail and much-loved characters Harry Potter fans have loved for over twenty-five years,” according to Warner Bros. Discovery. “Each season will bring Harry Potter and these incredible adventures to new audiences around the world, while the original, classic and cherished films will remain at the core of the franchise and available to watch globally.”
Law will next appear as Force user Jod Na Nawood in the new series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, which premieres Dec. 3 on Disney+.
