History of Magic in North America
J.K. Rowling Sets the Stage for "Fantastic Beasts"
This week Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is releasing a new series of writings entitled “History of Magic in North America” to introduce the wizarding world found in the highly anticipated film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which hits theaters on November 18. Starting today with “Fourteenth Century–Seventeenth Century,” the writings are being posted on Pottermore.com over four consecutive days. The four pieces will enlighten readers about a previously unexplored corner of the wizarding world: North American witches and wizards, their history and their magic.
On Monday the series was introduced with this 100-second video that serves as a prologue to the new original writings by Rowling.
The story of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander (Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne) has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident…were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.
The film marks J.K. Rowling’s screenwriting debut, whose script was inspired by the Hogwarts textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, written by her character Newt Scamander. A photo of the book from the first Potter film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is seen below.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them also reunites a number of people from the blockbuster Harry Potter theatrical series, including producers David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves and Lionel Wigram, as well as director David Yates, who helmed the final four Potter films.