Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (film)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the first in a series of films based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, one of the companion books to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Rowling will make her screen writing debut with this film.

The film is set in New York, around 1920, seventy years before the Harry Potter series, and will feature Newton Scamander as a main character. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them tells us that Scamander had been travelling the world in research of magical creatures since 1918, culminating with the publication of his masterpiece in 1927.

Warner Bros approached Rowling about using the book for a film, from which she pitched "an idea that [she] couldn't dislodge". Upon returning to Harry Potter for the first time since 2007, Rowling commented: "I always said that I would only revisit the wizarding world if I had an idea that I was really excited about and this is it."