J.K. Rowling says that the five ‘Fantastic Beasts’ films will span 19 years

As we all know, there are five films planned in the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them franchise with the first hitting cinemas later this week. Well, author and screenwriter J.K. Rowling has revealed that those five will will span a vast time period – 19 years.

Rowling was speaking to Variety whilst out and about on the promotional camapign for for the first Fantastic Beasts.

Here’s some video of her speaking with the trade.

Harry Potter author @jk_rowling explains the decision to make 5 #FantasticBeasts movies pic.twitter.com/yWm2Fw3Mht

— Variety (@Variety) November 10, 2016

“Originally, to tell you the truth, we said a trilogy as a placeholder. We wanted to be honest with people that it was going to be more than one movie, but we were feeling our way, and then there came a point in the drafting of the story where I said to David (Yates) that “this feels like five movies.” I think I’m pretty certain about that, it’s ambitious to tell it in five to be honest, because we’re spanning nineteen years, but I can see an arc to five, so that’s how it happened, it came out of the material.”

So, it looks as if we’ll be taken to around the end of the second World War if that time frame is indeed correct.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them opens on Friday – look out for our review on the website tomorrow. You can also catch some select interviews from last night’s European premiere in London below.