The original Harry Potter film series runs the gamut from high-flying fun to dark action movies to a romantic comedy to a family drama and all the way back around again. Which means that the upcoming prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, starring Academy Award-winner Eddie Redmayne, has a myriad of tones to choose from when considering what tone should be set in the planned trilogy. It could be pure fun, a dark meditation on tracking down wild animals, or a mix of the two. According to Executive Producer David Heyman, it will be a mix of all of the above.
”Mike [Newell] talked about the fourth as being like an Indian musical — and it’s not that, but it’s got the humor of that film. It has the romantic comedy, that fish-out-of-water humor, that very human, natural character comedy… [Beasts] is very funny, it’s got a big heart, and there’s darkness too.”
That definitely puts it closest to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth film and the approximate halfway point of the books and original movies. It is the point in the series where the maturity hinted at in The Prisoner of Azkaban fully flourishes into something darker and more menacing. The return of a villain who is the epitome of pure evil really does that to a franchise. Fortunately, Fantastic Beasts will at least have some lighter parts. You know, the lightness that comes in being set during WWII-era New York City. Only fun and games in the wizarding world for sure!
(Via Collider)
