Which 2016 fantasy film was J.K. Rowling's screenwriting debut?

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was J.K. Rowling's screenwriting debut.

The film was released in 2016 and marked Rowling's first produced screenplay. It expands the wizarding world beyond Harry Potter by following Newt Scamander, a magizoologist whose magical creatures escape in 1920s New York. Eddie Redmayne played Newt, and David Yates directed the film.

The title comes from a fictional Hogwarts textbook attributed to Newt Scamander. Rowling had previously published a charity companion book with the same title in 2001, but that small reference work is not the same as the 2016 film screenplay. The movie began a planned prequel series connected to the history of Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald.