What is the name of J.K. Rowling’s first Fantastic Beasts screenplay?

J.K. Rowling’s first Fantastic Beasts screenplay is titled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

The 2016 film was Rowling’s screenwriting debut and expanded a fictional Hogwarts textbook into a story set in New York in 1926. Eddie Redmayne plays Newt Scamander, the magizoologist whose magical creatures escape from his case. The film belongs to the Wizarding World but takes place decades before Harry Potter’s school years.

The title comes from the textbook mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Rowling had previously published a charity companion book using the same title in 2001, credited to the fictional author Newt Scamander. The film is not an adaptation of a full earlier novel; it develops an original screenplay.

Two sequels followed: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018 and The Secrets of Dumbledore in 2022. Those titles should not be confused with Rowling’s first screenplay.