14 DAY TRIAL // Some of the magic from the “Harry Potter” universe will be back on the big screen in 2016, when the spinoff “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” drops in theaters. Alfonso Cuaron, previously rumored to helm it, has denied any involvement in the new project.
The film won’t include appearances from any of the fan-favorites from the “Harry Potter” series, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, because it’s based on a book that they actually studied in school at Hogwarts, written by the “magizoologist” Newt Scamander.
J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” series of novels, released “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” in 2001.
The director of the critically acclaimed “Gravity” became linked to this new project because he had previously directed “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” and, somehow, he let it slip that he might be interested in returning to the franchise for another round.
He’s not.
“It was a very beautiful experience for me. I have a lot of love for that universe and I tremendously admire JK 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,” Cuaron says in a new interview cited by Digital Spy.
Despite his statement, IMDB still lists him as director of “Fantastic Beasts.”