Which J.K. Rowling screenplay was the basis for the 2016 film Fantastic Beasts?

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was the J.K. Rowling screenplay behind the 2016 film Fantastic Beasts.

The film was Rowling’s screenwriting debut and expanded a fictional Hogwarts textbook into a new story. It follows magizoologist Newt Scamander in New York in 1926, where magical creatures escape from his case and become entangled with tensions between wizards and non-magical people.

The title is shared with a 2001 charity book designed to look like a textbook used by Hogwarts students. That earlier book is presented as being written by Newt Scamander, but it is not a narrative screenplay. Rowling wrote the film’s original screenplay for the 2016 production.

The movie launched a planned series set decades before Harry Potter. Its later films explored the rise of Gellert Grindelwald and the history connecting him with Albus Dumbledore, while Newt remained a central character.