Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them Interviews – Director David Yates and Producer David HeymanPosted by Wilson Morales
November 9, 2016
Hitting theaters in 3D and IMAX on November 18, 2016 from Warner Bros. is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, an all-new adventure returning us to the wizarding world created by J.K. Rowling.
Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) stars in the central role of wizarding world magizoologist Newt Scamander, under the direction of David Yates, who helmed the last four “Harry Potter” blockbusters.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident…were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” also stars Katherine Waterston as Tina; Tony Award winner Dan Fogler as Jacob; Alison Sudol as Tina’s sister, Queenie; Ezra Miller as Credence; two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton as Mary Lou; Oscar winner Jon Voight as Henry Shaw, Sr.; Ron Perlman as Gnarlak; Carmen Ejogo as Seraphina; Jenn Murray as Chastity; young newcomer Faith Wood-Blagrove as Modesty; and Colin Farrell as Percival Graves.
The film marks the screenwriting debut of J.K. Rowling, whose beloved Harry Potter books were adapted into the top-grossing film franchise of all time. Her script was inspired by the Hogwarts textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, written by her character Newt Scamander.
While doing interviews for the films, director David Yates and Producer David Heyman spilled some beans on the film and what’s next to come.
How many films did J.K. Rowling write?
DAVID YATES: Joe has a good sense of where it’s going. She started writing the screenplay and at that point it was just going to be a trilogy. Then about half-way through writing the second film she got really excited and decided it was gonna be five. She did pitch a very rough shape of where it will all go but she’s still formulating it. It’s all kind of bubbling away inside her head. She’s fine tuning the specifics.In the second movie Dumbledore comes back. He’s got a couple of good scenes with Newt in the second movie. We’re discussing who will play Dumbledore. We’ve been talking about Jared Harris. We need a younger Dumbledore.
Can you talk about Johnny Depp’s appearance in the film?
DAVID HEYMAN: It’s very hard to keep secrets these days and especially something like that. When he came to Leavesden and we filmed for two days. And he would come out and it was mad.
DY: The whole principle of casting the movie was go for the best actors. Go for the most inspired, interesting, right fit for that character. And as we started to approach Grindlewald we thought who’s gonna take this in an interesting direction. In this business you’re a star one week and not the next but no one takes away your pure talent. And Johnny Depp is a real artist and he’s created several characters who have really resonated in our popular culture. He’s a really brilliant actor. We were excited to see what he would do with this kind of character. He’s fearless. He’s imaginative. He’s ambitious. We thought he’d do something full-on special so we went to him purely on that selfish basis. We don’t care if he’s famous or not famous. We just know he’s interesting.
Will the second movie have the beasts?
DY: The beasts will feature slightly less in the second movie. Grindlewald takes more of a foreground currently but we love the beasts so much. There’s an amazing beast in the second movie, a Chinese beast actually. We’re exploring how we can get more beasts into the second film because we enjoy them.And we can confirm it will take place in Paris. We do go back to the UK in the second film as well. I’m not quite sure where Joe is setting the rest of the movies. I think they’ll be European centric but I’m not sure yet because it’s still buzzing in her head.
DH: We’re trying to figure out where we want to go on holiday.
DY: Yep, exactly. The Caribbean would be good! I think it will be difficult to ignore America but the next one’s put on in Europe.
What made the cutting room floor that will be on the DVD extras?
DY: We finished the film three weeks ago so literally things just came out. There’s a lovely scene with Jacob who is dropped by his girlfriend, she leaves him. And it’s a really beautiful scene which will now be on the DVD extras.
DH: There’s more deleted scenes on this than any of the Potters.
DY: There’s a great scene with Alison (Sobol) and Katherine (Waterston) who do a little song about the old school. I got Alison to write it because she is a really gifted songwriter. So she wrote this absolutely beautiful song and they stand up and sing it together and the boys watch. And as the boys are watching them they slowly fall in love. Frankly it’s my favorite scene in the entire movie but the momentum of the storytelling at that point was starting to drag a little bit. So as delightful as it was it just stopped the movie but it will be on the DVD extras.
Were you ever concerned that children would be too scared to watch?
DY: What’s powerful about her work is she isn’t afraid to take children to dark places. She isn’t afraid to tell stories that explore about how scary the world can be. We were concerned early on in the process will children enjoy this movie because of it’s darkness. But Joe has always gone there. She’s always been keen to deal with death and characters that are corrosive and dangerous. I think that will hopefully continue in the sense of a younger audience will still be able to engage in the story and deal with those grown-up themes and be introduced to them. But moving forward in the next story we follow Credence further and he becomes quite pivotal and quite crucial.
Final Trailer
Ezra Miller Explains the ‘Harry Potter’ Connection in ‘Fantastic Beasts’
Clip – Welcome To New York
Clip – Setting Dangerous Creatures Loose
Clip – Newt vs the Niffler
Clip – Giggle
Clip – Bowtruckle
Clip – Case Full Of Monsters
Clip – Just A Smidge
Clip – Strudel
Featurette
