J.K. Rowling’s film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them premiered in 2016.
The film was released on 18 November 2016 and marked Rowling’s screenwriting debut. It is set in New York City in 1926, decades before the main Harry Potter story, and follows British magizoologist Newt Scamander.
The title comes from the fictional Hogwarts textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which Harry and his classmates use in the first Harry Potter novel. The film expands that short companion-book concept into an original story about magical creatures, wizarding politics, and the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.
Fantastic Beasts became the first film in a new series of wizarding-world movies. Its cast included Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, Katherine Waterston as Tina Goldstein, and Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski.