What was J.K. Rowling’s first screenplay for a feature film?

J.K. Rowling’s first screenplay for a feature film was Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Released in 2016, the film was written by Rowling and directed by David Yates. It is set in 1926, decades before the main Harry Potter story, and follows magizoologist Newt Scamander in New York City. The screenplay expands a fictional textbook that appears as a Hogwarts schoolbook in the Harry Potter world.

The film introduced new central characters, including Newt, Tina Goldstein, Queenie Goldstein and Jacob Kowalski. Eddie Redmayne played Newt Scamander. Although the setting and mythology connect it to Harry Potter, the film is not an adaptation of one of Rowling's seven main novels.

It began a film series planned around the earlier history of the wizarding world. Rowling also wrote the screenplays for the subsequent Fantastic Beasts films, but this 2016 production was her first feature-film screenplay.