The list of movie and TV productions that are being halted, delayed or scrapped due to the sweeping Coronavirus pandemic is growing bigger by the day. The latest James Bond adventure No Time to Die was the first major blockbuster to get pushed back, and since then the likes of Mulan, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Fast & Furious 9, The New Mutants, A Quiet Place Part II and others have followed suit, while the Arrowverse has also been put on hiatus along with Netflix’s entire production slate.
One of the few studios that are determined to carry on regardless is Warner Bros., with both The Batman and The Matrix 4 set to continue shooting, although there have been rumors hinting that upcoming DCEU sequel Wonder Woman 1984 could end up being delayed. Now, a new report seems to indicate that another of the studio’s mega-budget projects, the still-untitled third entry in Wizarding World spinoff series Fantastic Beasts, is set to commence filming on Monday.
Newt Scamander’s latest adventure isn’t set to be released until November 2021, so there’s still plenty of time to meet that deadline even if it does end up being delayed, although all signs point to director David Yates kicking things off at the start of next week. Fantastic Beasts 3 was originally slated for this November, but it was moved twelve months in order for the script to get some more fine-tuning, which was reportedly caused by the disappointing critical and commercial reaction to The Crimes of Grindelwald.
This time around, J.K. Rowling is sharing writing duties with Harry Potter veteran Steve Kloves, so hopefully the latest installment will fare much better than its predecessor, which had fans up in arms over many aspects of the story. Despite Johnny Depp dominating the headlines for personal reasons recently, the actor is still set to play a featured role in Fantastic Beasts 3, while in an attempt to placate the fans, the movie is also set to include much more of Hogwarts and Jude Law’s Dumbledore. Color us excited.