Realizing it’s been two years since movie audiences have experienced the magic of giving J.K. Rowling billions of dollars, the Harry Potter author is reteaming with Warner Bros. for an all-new film series tangentially related to the franchise. Rowling will make her screenwriting debut on Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them—a story based on a textbook that was included on an assigned reading list in the first Harry Potter, and a story just slightly more interesting than Hogwarts’ Rules Regarding The Use Of Hot Plates.
Beasts is considered neither sequel nor prequel, beginning in New York some 70 years before the events of the Harry Potter series, and focusing on “the textbook’s fictitious author, Newt Scamander,” as he tracks various mythical monsters and then publishes their home addresses like a total asshole. However, the wizarding world’s answer to We Bought A Zoo will still feature “creatures and characters from the Potter mythology,” thus leaving the door wide open for Hobbit-like, “Hey, it’s…!” cameos from returning favorites like Professor Dumbledeedoo, Hangry, Panko Monkfish, Obstetrics Exam, and other beloved characters you love whom you haven’t seen in so long, you’re pretty sure that was their name. Not Harry Potter, though.