Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Warner Brothers is all in on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. As they should be. It's their best home-grown franchise. They bet on Potter before the book series was finished and we got some of the best family entertainment of all time out of it. The only catch is that they're out of source material now. Unlike their DC films they don't have decades of characters and story to draw film here.
They do, however, have JK Rowling willing to expand upon her own universe just for them, which is pretty huge. Rowling scripted this November's Fantastic Beasts, based off of a character mentioned in one of her smaller Potter spin-off books and now she's back at the typewriter (I mean, I'm sure she writes on a computer like everyone else, but I like the image of her clacking away at an old typewriter, ripping pages out and rolling new ones in as she furiously works through the script) for the sequel, which Warner Brothers just dated for November 18th, 2018.
David Yates will again return as director.
What this signals to me is that WB really, really likes how Fantastic Beasts is shaping up, but without a script in place if the movie comes out and people don't like it they can still back out with only a little embarrassment at the announced date.
But this is bigger than just Fantastic Beasts. Their Potter brand is a cash machine. You have to bet they're having conversations about when to strike out and make The Cursed Child. Do they wait for the three youngsters to age or do they recast and strike while the iron is hot?
We'll see, but right now we know for sure they're all-in on the Fantastic Beasts franchise, with the sequel greenlighted before the first movie comes out.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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