Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them: Casting Underway For First Harry Potter Spin-Off

According to a casting call intercepted by Acting Auditions, submissions are now being accepted by talent looking to book a role in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Scripted by JK Rowling herself, this is the first of three proposed Harry Potter spin-off movies that Warner Bros. have on the cards for the next five years or so. David Yates has signed on to direct, and David Heyman will again be producing. Really, it's very much business as usual behind the scenes even while the story and characters are all new. Production on the film is set to kick-off in August or thereabouts, with studio filming set for Leavesden, here in the UK, and location work expected to take place in New York. The film will be set in the Big Apple, in fact - or at least some of it will - but not in the present day. According to this casting call, the film takes place around 1920. We already knew it would be sometime about then. This means Newton Scamander, the lead character, will be about 23 in the film. It seems like Rowling has decided to grow up her protagonists at more or less the same rate as her audience; those Harry's age when the first of his films came out will be in their mid-20s themselves now. How much the story is aimed at 20-somethings or how specifically relevant its themes might be for this age group remains to be seen. All we know so far is that there's going to be be magic, monsters, and monster hunting. We can look forward to Fantastic Beasts in our cinemas in November 2016.