A New Harry Potter Trilogy?

[Alatar]

JK Rowling has been tantalising fans on Twitter with clues about her new screenplay Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. But what the author hasn’t revealed is that there might well be “three or more” of the Harry Potter spin-off movies in the works.

“Jo has a vision for this extension of the franchise, and for the first time, she is writing the script for what she believes is at least a trilogy,” Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara said according to the LA Times.

The movies look set to be directed by David Yates who helmed the final four of the eight-part Potter franchise.

Yates is also reported to be planning to reunite the Potter filmmaking team of David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves and Lionel Wigram.

Based on a 42-page textbook set for Hogwarts pupils and published in 2001, the spin-off Warner Bros film follows “magizoologist” Newt Scamander, who dedicates his life to the search for magical creatures in an “extension” of Potter’s fantastical world.

The release date for the first film is slated at 18 November 2016, two days before the 15th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The subsequent films are believed to be planned for 2018 and 2020.

3 films based on 42 pages! And you thought The Hobbit was stretching it.

[Impenitent]

Do you really think these will end up on screen?

[Alatar]

Absolutely! Money talks...

[Primula Baggins]

And Harry Potter–sized money talks very loud indeed.

ETA: Grump! This new font doesn't distinguish en dashes. - –

[Impenitent]

I've never been able to figure out em dashes on the messageboard.

I've been thinking about it, and I think adventures in that world with a new protagonist could be wonderful. It's a fairly rich world, hardly explored, after all. It all depends on the strength of the script in the first place. If it is too derivative, or a pastiche of the previous films, it won't work beyond the die-hards.

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Pardon my typos - tiny phone keyboard probs.

[Anduril]

Teaser trailer is out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj1devH5JP4

The new films will be set before Harry's time. I'd rather see sequels not prequels.

But a stage play has that covered. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/ ... roduction/

[Lalaith]

(I use the windows-alt codes. So ALT 0151 on the number pad. — Em dash till your heart is content. )

Carry on.

[Primula Baggins]

But what's the code for an en dash? The Mac keyboard shortcut isn't working. Hyphen: - ; en dash: –. Nope.

[Jude]

Does the Mac have anything like the Windows character map?

Or, could you type one in a word processor, and then just copy and paste it into your browser?

[Lalaith]

The en dash is ALT 0150. –

I never noticed a difference between the en dash and the hyphen before, but I guess they are different sizes.

– - —

[Primula Baggins]

It's used in number ranges, or to express that a relationship exists between two terms (doctor–patient confidentiality), or in place of a hyphen if one of the hyphenated terms consists of two or more words (United States–led coalition). And I didn't notice it, ever, until I got my first job in publishing.

[Lalaith]

I'm not sure I notice the difference. Unless they are side-by-side (which they shouldn't be, I don't think), it's a very teensy difference.

-
–
—

Hmmm.

[Primula Baggins]

If you're tuned into them (you do learn to see them—I certainly have; they leap out at me when they're wrong), and if you're reading complicated text, it's useful when they're used (and used right).

Otherwise, it's more of a shibboleth for copyeditors. But learning and maintaining these obscure rules is part of learning and maintaining all the rules. And doing that is what keeps formal writing in English continuously intelligible from one generation to the next (or from multiple generations ago to now).

Yes, it's true: copyeditors are the Guardians of the Flame. <preens>

[Lalaith]

Meanwhile, the rest of us revel in our abandon.

[Primula Baggins]

[axordil]

I'm pretty sure the difference between the en dash and the hyphen will not survive much longer, given that it's purely one of typography and not truly grammatical. The em dash serves a...hey, weren't we talking about Harry Potter? This looks suspiciously like the old road to Osgiliath from Minas Morgul. Or maybe Minas–Morgul.

[Anduril]

Today I learned something new, thank you. This was never taught in English class, probably because we didn't take up typing on typewriters. (Also, I finally found a copy of The Hidden Worlds. )

Besides, there's not much to talk about regarding the movie, but there is this:

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/04/fantastic-beasts
http://www.themarysue.com/fantastic-bea ... t-details/
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/04/fa ... can-muggle
http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2 ... or-muggle/

Eccentric magizoologist Newt Scamander comes to New York with his trusty weathered case. This case is one of those way-way-way-bigger-on-the-inside magical devices, and within are expansive habitats for a collection of rare and endangered magical creatures from Newt’s travels around globe. He discovers the American wizarding community is fearfully hiding from Muggles (who are called “No-Maj” in the States) and the threat of public exposure is an even graver concern than in the UK. Fantastic Beasts is the story of what happens when this uniquely skilled English wizard travels to wiz-phobic America and a variety of his creatures, some quite dangerous … get out of their case.

American wizards have a completely different word for “Muggle.”

Next year’s Harry Potter prequel film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set in 1926 New York, where the wizarding community uses another term entirely for people without magical powers.

In shifting the franchise away from the U.K., author J.K. Rowling — who also wrote the movie’s screenplay — is poised to introduce several new words into the Potterverse lexicon, and the most significant might be what Stateside wizards say instead of Muggle: “No-Maj” (pronounced “no madge,” as in “no magic”).

Eeeh, world-building is nice since the books are so UK-centric, but like I said, I'd rather have this sort of thing as sequels instead of prequels. Besides, the wizarding world is staunchly old-fashioned, so making the whole movie a period piece wouldn't change that much.

[Impenitent]

No Maj? But Muggle is such a wonderful word why fall back on one which lacks all imagination?


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[Frelga]

Because America.

I like that it's a prequel. It's rare that you see a successful writer avoid the temptation of calling back to the character and events of the already published books. This sort of prequel could be a fresh story set in a familiar world.

So far, it looks intriguing.

[Anduril]

This trilogy's going to have to explain why the protagonist is absent during the Potter films, when he could have helped (if he's not invalid or dead). Like how the Force ghost of Anakin/Vader was inexplicably absent from The Force Awakens.