The first installment of the now much larger FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM franchise is still a month away, but Warner Bros. obviously has quite a lot of faith in the Harry Potter spin-off as it was announced today by J.K. Rowling that the first film will be followed by four sequels. We've known that Warner Bros. had multiple FANTASTIC BEASTS sequels planned for some time but now we know exactly how long the new franchise will last.
Inspired by the Hogwarts textbook of the same name, FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM will open 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." That synopsis doesn't necessarily feel like a story which needs a total of five films to be told, but Rowling said that when we realize "what story we're *really* telling, you'll understand that it can't possibly fit in one movie!" The first film will serve as J.K. Rowling's screenwriting debut and she's currently putting the finishing touches on the sequel which will, according to director David Yates, take the story in a "whole new direction."
I'd imagine that fans of the HARRY POTTER franchise will be pleased to know that the series will continue on a little longer than they previously thought and, without a series of novels to draw from, it's rather exciting not knowing how the story of FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM will unfold when it hits theaters on November 18, 2016.