The “Fantastic Beasts” film franchise is “parked,” director David Yates said in a new interview with Total Film magazine. The Eddie Redmayne-led franchise is a prequel to Harry Potter, conceived by author JK Rowling as a five-film series. Three films have been released – “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” (2016), “The Crimes of Grindelwald” (2018) and “The Secrets of Dumbledore” (2022) – but lackluster box office returns for the third entry (The Price of $407 million worldwide left many “Harry Potter” fans wondering whether two more films would become reality.
“Everything on ‘Beasts’ is just parked,” Yates said. “We made these three films, the last one during a pandemic, and it was tremendous fun, but it was hard. We actually filmed when there was no vaccine. Luckily no one got sick, but we had the most detailed protocols.”
“We are all so proud of it [‘Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore’] And when it came into the world, we just had to stop and take it easy,” Yates added.
Yates directed all three Fantastic Beasts films, with Rowling writing each entry (she had sole screenwriting credit on the first two films, and Steven Kloves on board the third). Yates is a veteran of the “Harry Potter” universe and has also directed every “Potter” film from “Order of the Phoenix” to “Deathly Hallows Part 2.” He told Total Film that Rowling’s five-film plan for Fantastic Beasts was not communicated to him or anyone else when they began work on the first film in the series.
“The idea that there would be five films was a surprise to most of us,” Yates said. “Jo just spontaneously mentioned it at a press screening. Nobody told us there would be five, we settled on the first one… I’m sure we’ll come back at some point. But yeah, I haven’t spoken to Jo, I haven’t spoken to her [producer] David Heyman, I haven’t spoken to Warner Bros.; we’ll just take a break. It’s quite nice. It allows me to do things like that.”
“Stuff like this” refers to Yates’ latest directorial effort, the Netflix pharmaceutical crime drama “Pain Hustlers.” The film, starring Chris Evans and Emily Blunt, was purchased by the streamer in a $50 million deal.
“After spending so much time making movies about wizards, I wanted to make a movie that was set in the real world and about social issues, but not too serious and serious,” Yates previously told Variety World premiere of the film at the Toronto International Film Festival. “I wanted to tell a story that was entertaining and funny in a subversive way. I’m moving away from the heightened world of JK Rowling, but I’m not going straight to kitchen drama. The characters here are so cocky and crazy and the world is so intense.”
“Pain Hustlers” will stream on Netflix on October 27th.