David Yates as director? He fucked up all latest HP movies in my opinion.

 

All the HP movies were equally bad.

This one has a chance of being good because it's an original story and not an existing one that can be ruined.

As for the actor, he's okay I guess.

 

I'll pretty much watch anything with Redmayne. He earned my loyalty with Pillars of the Earth.

 

I've not seen Jupiter Ascending, but Redmayne was the best part of that otherwise-godawful Les Mis adaptation. And he's got serious acting chops, as demonstrated in Theory of Everything. I feel way better about this movie now that I know he'll be the lead.

 

Redmayne is a fantastic actor, and he when he acts he has an incredibly talent that I think is the most important one on this film. The ability to look truly awes and amazed, when he does it I can feel his sense of amazement, his joy. He did it in Pillars and Theory. I remember my favorite thing about Steve Irwin was his sense of joy around nature, if they go that route with Newt... It would be amazing.

 

Personally, I'm staying cautiously optimistic about the whole thing. As long as they keep this a lighthearted zoologist version of Indiana Jones, I'm ok with it.

 

I don't know what you twits are talking about. Jupiter Ascending was bad, but Redmayne as Balem was fucking hilarious.

 

Jupiter Acending in a nutshell; A cleaning lady finds out she's a princess and fights a battle to save the universe only to go back to being maid. It was a shitty movie. At least if this movie flops it still has the HP verse to hold it above water. I never read the Rowling's side stories but I'll definitely go see this.

 

Katherine Waterston has been cast in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as Porpentina, nicknamed 'Tina', an American witch who meets magiczoologist Newt Scamander on his travels in New York City.

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/fantastic-beasts-katherine-waterston-tina-harry-potter-spinoff-1201500789/

Interesting enough, her younger sister who has yet to be cast is named Queenie, which was the original name for Daphne Greengrass when JK Rowling was writing the Philosopher Stone(as shown in the 2001 TV special 'Harry Potter and Me'.) Also the last name isn't listed. Are one of these two sisters Daphne and Astoria's grandmother? Maybe the Greengrasses are originally an American family? Pottermore implied that they were going to eventually talk about Astoria's backstory and how she married Draco and it'd be a small way to tie Harry Potter with this movie series.

 

I'm surprised Waterston was even on their radar when they were casting. She was fucking ethereal in Inherent Vice - seeing her play against Redmayne is going to be fantastic.

 

Porpentina is the name of Newt's wife (from the real book FBAWTFT), it's strange they don't precise so in the article.

 

So filming started this week, and we have a main cast list as well:

Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander
Katherine Waterston as Porpentina / Tina Goldstein
Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein
Dan Fogler as Jacob
Ezra Miller as Credence
Samantha Morton as Mary Lou
Colin Farrell as Graves
Faith Wood-Blagrove as Modesty
Jenn Murray as Chastity

I feel like the name choices are highly suggestive of the direction JKR is taking wizarding America - very much "colonial Puritan" in character, which is an interesting line given that they're wizards. I think we're going to get much more of the sense of America as a wild place and a frontier than the modern idea of industrial America.

 

Colonial Wizards? I'm game for that.

Am I the only one who noticed the Goldsteins, which could mean that either they're somehow going to connect the story to Grindelwald or they're Anthony Goldstein's grandparents.

 

What connection is there between Grindelwald and the Goldstein family?

 

I think he means that the -stein suffix may point to the family having Jewish roots. Which are linked to Grindlewald via Hitler.

I dunno, it's a pretty tenuous connection at best.

 

I'm feeling a disturbance in the force...

 

Nail on the head. I freely admit it there might be no connection at all, but I feel like the possibility is there.

 

I don't recall there being anything in canon about Grindlewald and Hitler being involved. Granted, there's been a fair bit of fanon on the subject, most of which came out pre-Deathly Hallows when all we knew about him was that Dumbledore beat him during World War II.

 

I assume it's all because of that one twitter exchange with JKR about Jewish wizards; she's overcorrecting with what will clearly be a major subplot to prove she isn't anti-semitic. That said, I'm looking forward to it!

 

The special effects better be good. I don't want to pay to go see terrible CGI.