Just when you thought the burgeoning cast list of Harry Potter offshoot Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them couldn’t get any bigger, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Gemma Chan, Selma star Carmen Ejogo and Jon Voight have all been recruited for Warner Bros.’ prequel story.
Filming is well underway for the studio’s high-profile spinoff, after cameras began rolling last month in England. Designed as an expansion of the Harry Potter lore, the film – directed by David Yates and penned by none other than JK Rowling herself – will follow Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander, a brilliant pioneer who opened up a whole new field within the magical world of witchcraft and wizardry: Magizoology. Indeed, Yates’ latest venture into Rowling’s universe will take place a full 70 years before the Scamander’s title book graces the hands of the Boy Who Lived.
Today’s trio of new recruits will rub shoulders with an impressive ensemble cast, one which also boasts Katherine Waterston, Ezra Miller, True Detective star Colin Farrell, Dan Fogler and Samantha Morton. While the additions of Chan, Ejogo and Voight as certainly enticing, Warner Bros. didn’t divulge any information relating to their actual roles, but we gather they will be supporting players given the fact the production is already underway.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is shaping up to become a bona fide franchise for Warner Bros. – it was only a matter of time before the studio circled back to the Harry Potter universe – with David Yates’ first installment arriving in November, 2016.
