A couple of weeks ago it was said that Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) could be set for a return to the Harry Potter universe, with reports indicating that he’d entered talks with Warner Bros. about helming the upcoming J.K. Rowling-scripted spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
However, fans of Cuaron’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban will be disappointed to here that the director has now ruled himself out of the running, telling Global Post that:
“I have a lot of love for that universe, and I tremondously admire J.K. Rowling, but today, for the present, projects based around lots of visual effects don’t attract me. I’m coming out of a five-year process of doing visual effects and now I sort of want to clean my palate of that a little bit.”
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is envisioned as the first of a new trilogy centred around the character of “magizoologist” Newt Scamander, and is set some 70 years before the main Harry Potter series. The film is scheduled for release on November 18th 2016.
Originally published May 27, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
