During an interview with the Inside Total Film Podcast to promote his new crime drama, Pain Hustlers, Yates gave an update about the beleaguered Fantastic Beasts franchise, which halted after three of its five planned films were released. Get all the details in this video.
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00:00 Fantastic Beast director David Yates says the franchise has been put on pause.
00:05 During an interview with the Inside Total Film podcast to promote his new crime drama
00:09 Pain Ustlers, Yates gave an update about the beleaguered Fantastic Beast franchise which
00:13 halted after three of its five planned films were released.
00:16 "With Beast for a minute it's all just parked.
00:19 We made those three movies.
00:21 We made the last one through the pandemic and it was enormous fun but it was tough.
00:25 We were actually filming when there wasn't a vaccine.
00:28 Thank goodness no one got sick but we put the most detailed protocols in place.
00:32 And then we got to the end of FB3 and we're all so proud of that movie and when it went
00:37 out into the world we just needed to sort of stop and pause and take it easy."
00:42 Yates claimed the entire idea of a five-film franchise wasn't the studios at all.
00:46 It was initially planned as three films and he suggested that the saga's author and
00:50 Fantastic Beast trilogy screenwriter J.K.
00:52 Rowling made the announcement of a five-film plan without much of the creative team knowing
00:56 ahead of time.
00:57 "And the idea that there were going to be five films was a total surprise to most of
01:01 us because Joe just mentioned it spontaneously at a press screening once.
01:07 We were literally I think we were presenting FB1 or we were presenting some clips of FB1
01:13 and we'd all signed up for FB1 very enthusiastically and Joe, bless her, came on and I was there
01:20 with Eddie and the other actors and we were here talking about the movie that we were
01:24 making that we were very excited about, that first Fantastic Beast film and Joe said, 'Oh
01:28 and by the way there's five of them.'
01:30 And we all looked at each other because no one had told us there were going to be five."
01:34 It's worth noting studio Warner Bros. never corrected this statement or gave any indication
01:38 that five films wasn't the plan, despite five being cited in media stories for years afterward.
01:43 "I haven't spoken to Joe and I haven't spoken to David Heyman, I haven't spoken
01:47 to Warner Bros. We're just taking a pause and it's quite nice and it allows me to
01:51 do stuff like this and other things I've got lined up that I'm excited about.
01:56 But I'm sure at some point, Newt may well be back.
01:59 Who can tell?
02:00 We're not really, we haven't got any in-depth conversations at the moment."
02:03 Warner Bros. end rolling did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
02:07 For more on this story, go to THR.com.
02:10 This is The Hollywood Reporter News.
02:11 (whooshing)
02:13 (upbeat music)