Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay

Set seventy years before Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts, this original screenplay follows Newt Scamander — a British magizoologist — as he arrives in New York City in 1926 with a weathered leather case containing dozens of magical creatures, some of them dangerously powerful. When the case is accidentally swapped with that of Jacob Kowalski, a No-Maj (American term for Muggle) with aspirations to open a bakery, several creatures escape into the city.

What begins as a creature-retrieval story rapidly expands into something darker: the Magical Congress of the United States (MACUSA) is on high alert after a series of mysterious attacks on New York, attributed to an obscurus — a parasitic dark force that develops inside young magic users who have been taught to suppress their abilities. The forces of Gellert Grindelwald, the most dangerous dark wizard in the world, are operating in the shadows.

The first original screenplay Rowling wrote — having previously served only as executive producer on the Harry Potter films — Fantastic Beasts was published simultaneously with the film's November 2016 release. It introduces a new era of Wizarding World storytelling set in 1920s America, expanding the world's geography, politics, and history while planting the seeds for a conflict that would reshape the magical world for decades.