Fantastic Beasts Director Offers Update on the Fourth Movie

Summary

• Director David Yates reveals that nobody knew there would be five Fantastic Beasts movies until J.K. Rowling announced it during a press screening.
• Yates provides a relatively positive update, saying that Fantastic Beasts is currently on pause.
• While Warner Bros. has plans for the Harry Potter universe, including a serial adaptation and potentially a big screen adaptation of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it remains uncertain whether there will actually be a fourth Fantastic Beasts film.

Director David Yates, best known for helming several installments of the Harry Potter series and all three entries in the Fantastic Beasts spinoff, has offered an update on whether there will be more movies in the prequel series. And reveals that nobody was aware there would be five Fantastic Beasts outings until J.K. Rowling suddenly said it. Speaking with Total Film, Yates provided a relatively positive update regarding the return of Fantastic Beasts, saying that they are simply on “pause” at present. Something which he has enjoyed, as it gives him the chance to pursue other projects such as the Netflix movie Pain Hustlers.

“I’m sure at some point, we’ll be back. But yeah, I haven’t spoken to Jo, I haven’t spoken to [producer] David Heyman, I haven’t spoken to Warner Bros; we’re just taking a pause. It’s quite nice. It allows me to do stuff like this.”

Continuing, the filmmaker revealed that the idea of the Fantastic Beasts franchise being five movies came as a shock to both him and everyone else, with Rowling making the reveal all of a sudden during a press screening.

“The idea that there were going to be five films was a surprise to most of us. Jo just mentioned it spontaneously, at a press screening once. No one had told us there were going to be five, we’d committed to the first one.”

The last audiences saw of the Wizarding World on the big screen was in last year’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which sees Albus Dumbledore tasking Newt Scamander and his allies with a mission that will bring an end to the nefarious schemes of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald’s army.

RELATED: Pain Hustlers Director David Yates: ‘I Was Looking For Something That Didn’t Have Wizards in It’

Will We Ever See Fantastic Beasts 4?

Warner Bros. Pictures

While Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was considered an improvement on its predecessor, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the movie still received largely mixed reviews as well as bombing at the box office and becoming the lowest-grossing film in the Wizarding World franchise.

So, while David Yates attempts to reassure fans of the series by saying things are merely on “pause,” it behooves us to wonder whether we will ever actually see a fourth Fantastic Beasts movie. Warner Bros. does have big plans for the world of Harry Potter outside the two main series’, with a serial adaptation now being planned for release on Max.

Alongside the series, rumors continue to circulate that the studio is also planning a big screen adaptation of the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Though nothing is official.

David Yates meanwhile has moved away from the Wizarding World and into the world of crime dramas with the recent Netflix movie Pain Hustlers. Starring Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy García, Catherine O’Hara, Jay Duplass, Brian d’Arcy James, and Chloe Coleman, Pain Hustlers follows a high school dropout who lands a job with a failing pharmaceutical company in Central Florida, where she soon finds herself at the center of a criminal conspiracy.

Pain Hustlers is now available to stream on Netflix. Check out the trailer below:

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