David Heyman On How FANTASTIC BEASTS Was Originally Imagined As a Documentary

Producer David Heyman discussed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with SlashFilm.

Heyman had expressed sadness at having to leave the Harry Potter franchise behind and his excitement at coming back to the world with Fantastic Beasts. He also admits that Fantastic Beasts was originally thought of as a documentary.

“It was exciting to move on and to embrace new challenges with Gravity and Paddington, but when it finished, there was a not-insignificant sadness because [the Potter films] had been such a big part of my life. Jo Rowling created such an incredibly rich and deeply conceived world. What you read in the books is in some ways just the surface of this world. I’d ask her about the [character Sirius Black’s] family tree because we had to paint it on the wall [for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix], and the book only had two names, and half an hour later I’d receive a family tree going back six generations with 100 people. I’m sure Newt Scamander and his story have been in her mind for many years. We were sitting around wondering what else we could do in this world, and [producer] Lionel Wigram, who is the person I first brought the first [Potter] book to, thought about maybe doing a documentary about Newt. That idea was floated to Jo, and she responded to doing a film about [that character].”

Heyman also discussed whether we will see any sequels in the future:

“We’ve talked about making a couple, but with all these things — and this may be a failing of mine — I don’t look at them as franchises; I look at them as films. We want to make each film as good as we can because if you don’t, you won’t have a second film or a third.”

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them hits theaters November 18, 2016.

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