'Fantastic Beasts' Director Says The Franchise Is 'Parked' & There Were Never Plans for 5 Movies

The Fantastic Beasts movies are essentially done, at least for now.

David Yates, who directed the three Wizarding World of Harry Potter prequel movies and the last four HP movies, is speaking out about the possibility of a fourth Fantastic Beasts film.

If you recall, the last one, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, did not do well at the box office and was the lowest performing film in the entire Harry Potter franchise. Because of this, it was unknown if another film would be happening.

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“With Beasts, it’s all just parked,” David told Total Film. “We made those three movies, the last one through a pandemic, and it was enormous fun but it was tough. We were actually filming when there wasn’t a vaccine. Thankfully, no one got sick, but we did have the most detailed protocols in place.”

“We’re all so proud of [Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore] and when it went out into the world, we just needed to sort of stop and pause, and take it easy,” he added.

He did bring up how it was said that there would be five movies.

“The idea that there were going to be five films was a surprise to most of us,” the director said. “[JK Rowling] just mentioned it spontaneously, at a press screening once. No one had told us there were going to be five, we’d committed to the first one.”

“I’m sure at some point, we’ll be back,” David shared. “But yeah, I haven’t spoken to Jo, I haven’t spoken to [producer] David Heyman, I haven’t spoken to Warner Bros; we’re just taking a pause. It’s quite nice. It allows me to do [other things].”

Back in March 2016, JK Rowling had said that Fantastic Beasts would be a trilogy, then later year, she said there would be five movies.

If you missed it, see what Fantastic Beasts star Eddie Redmayne said earlier this year about doing more movies…