4/10/2015
Oscar Winner Eddie Redmayne May Star in 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'
With the Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them due to hit screens next year, casting needs to get moving soon. Last month rumors had pegged Doctor Who and Teminator Genisys' Matt Smith as the frontrunner, but it looks like Warner Bros. is keen on adding someone with some Oscar gold to their credit.
Best Actor winner Eddie Redmayne is the frontrunner to play magizoologist Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which author J.K. Rowling will pen herself. Harry Potter vet David Yates is directing the first of what is expected to be a trilogy taking place 70 years before the boy wizard was even a twinkle in anybody's eye.
It's an interesting move for Redmayne, and somewhat of a surprise given his last blockbuster experience was with Jupiter Ascending. His next film is Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl, in which he plays the first man to undergo a sex change. [Variety]