In an interview with Emma Watson for Wonderland Magazine author JK Rowling talks a bit about the Fantastic Beasts movie script:
I wanted to ask you about the script that you are writing for Warner Bros. for Fantastic Beasts...
Warner Bros. came to me ages ago and said they wanted to do something with Fantastic Beasts. I could see the potential in it. I knew something about Newt [Scamander, the fictional author of Fantastic Beasts] having written a little something for Comic Relief. I had imagined a little bit of back story for him… So when Warner Bros. came to me and said they wanted to make a film out of the book I had this simultaneous feeling of “it has a lot of potential,” and another feeling of slight panic that “I know some things about Newt and I don’t want you to ruin that for me!” because I knew who he was. So then I went away and sort of dwelt on what I knew about Newt, not intending to write a script but just trying to collect my thoughts so that I could at least give them the backstory I’d imagined, so that their vision was true to what I knew. Then I really did have one of those moments that always make you phenomenally excited as a writer; but also that you know is going to end up being a ton of work. I thought, “Oh my God, a whole plot’s just descended on me!” But I wanted to do it as I was really excited about it. I wasn’t really thinking about writing the script myself, I thought, you know, I’ll give them this plot and then – fatally – I sat down and thought “I just wonder what it would look like…” and wrote a rough draft in twelve days!
Ahhhhh!
It wasn’t a great draft but it did show the shape of how it might look. So that is how it all started.
Wow, Warner Bros. must have been so excited.
I think they were kind of stunned. I didn’t tell them I had written it in twelve days. I’ve never written a script. It truly wasn’t that I thought I’d be good at it, I just wanted to get the outline of the story down, and that’s obviously given me a lot to work with going forward.
To read the full interview over on Mugglenet, click here!
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