Rowling to conjure five ‘Fantastic Beasts’ films for Harry Potter fans

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Katherine Waterston, Eddie Redmayne, Alison Sudol and Dan Folger in a scene from ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’. Photo: AP

Published: 10:07pm, 14 Oct 2016Updated: 10:07pm, 14 Oct 2016

Harry Potter fans got fantastic news on Thursday. Author J.K. Rowling said that the Potter spin-off film franchise Fantastic Beasts will consist of five films, up from the previously announced three.

“We set a trilogy as a placeholder because we knew there would be more than one movie, but ... we’re pretty sure it’s going to be five movies,” Rowling told participants in London gathered at a fan event.

The British author of the best-selling Harry Potter books was a surprise addition at a question-and-answer event with the Fantastic Beasts cast in London and Los Angeles that was broadcast across the world.

The news was welcomed by excited screams from the audience, while the cast, including Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne, looked surprised as they heard it for the first time. The films will be released by Warner Bros.

A four-minute Fantastic Beasts featurette shown at Thursday’s event finally hinted at the wider plot of the film that has so far been under wraps. The planned films, designed as prequels to the Potter stories, will trace the rise of a powerful wizard named Gellert Grindelwald and his eventual 1945 duel with Albus Dumbledore, the popular wizard headmaster from the Potter stories.