Weekly Round-Up: Daniel Radcliffe on ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ 20th Anniversary, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Prequel Confirmed & More!

March is off to a flying start with news of a Harry Potter Funko Pop! Pin collection, Warner Bros. new Imagine Creative Careers initiative, and Evanna Lynch joining the Leakycon Denver lineup. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone won the 2020 “Winner of Winners” Blue Peter Book Award, Zynga announced the launch of the new Wizarding World mobile game Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells and we interviewed writer and director Francis Annan ahead of the release of Daniel Radcliffe’s latest film Escape to Pretoria.

This week in our Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts Round-Up a Beauty and the Beast prequel series is announced with speculation of a guest appearance for Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe talks the Philosopher’s Stone 20th Anniversary in a new Escape from Pretoria interview, Batman director Matt Reeves reveals Robert Pattinson’s Batmobile, Jason Isaacs is cast in an upcoming CBS series, Evanna Lynch leads a new EU short film, No Time To Die starring Ralph Fiennes postpones its release due to coronavirus worries and more.

Rumor: Could Emma Watson Reprise Her Role in the Beauty and the Beast Prequel Series?

Late this week THR broke the news that Beauty and the Beast characters Gaston and LeFou are getting a small screen origin story. According to the entertainment outlet the actors that played the roles in the 2017 live action remake, Luke Evans and Josh Gad will star in the six-episode musical series for Disney Plus. Award-winning composer Alan Menken has signed on for the project, as have showrunners Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz of Once Upon a Time fame. Why is this big news for Harry Potter fans? The article goes on to tease a possible reprisal of her role in the Disney mega hit by Hermione Granger herself, Emma Watson,

No other stars from the film — like Emma Watson and Dan Stevens — are currently attached, though sources say there is a possibility that they could pop in for a guest spot.

No other word on the yet unnamed Beauty and the Beast TV debut, but we will definitely keep our Extendable Ears at the ready.

Daniel Radcliffe on a Philosopher’s Stone 20th Anniversary

With two films out in the span of a week, Daniel Radcliffe has definitely made the media rounds lately, all while starring in Endgame at the Old Vic Theatre. Last week we covered two interviews he gave for his most recent release, Escape from Pretoria, the true story of anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin’s 1979 attempt to break out of a maximum security prison in South Africa. In addition to numerous reviews for the film, a plethora of additional interviews with the former Boy Wizard appeared online this week. In them, he discusses everything from his early poetry to his diagnosis with dyspraxia, his picture in the National Portrait Gallery to working with former teenage crushes, in addition to details about his work in the new prison break drama.

The interview that really cast a spell on us this week was a chat Radcliffe had with PopBuzz. In it his host broached the subject of the Philosopher’s Stone film’s 20th Anniversary next year, November 14, 2021. We’ve been speculating about the event for awhile, but this is the first time we’ve seen it mentioned in an interview. Radcliffe replied that he “wouldn’t rule it out.” That sounds like mediaspeak to us for “My agent’s already got it on the calendar, but we don’t have any details yet.” Interestingly the next Fantastic Beasts film is due out just two days before on November 12, 2021. The possibility of whatever is being brewed up by the Wizarding World for that weekend is mind blowing. Think Seamus and pyrotechics.

Take a look at the PopBuzz interview first, then a few other recent Radcliffe interviews, including this one from Esquire LatinoAmerica  Escape from Pretoria opened in theaters Friday, March 6. ICYMI- check out our EXCLUSIVE interview with the film’s writer and director Francis Annan.



Robert Pattinson’s Batmobile Revealed

Accio Batman! Little by little fans are being treated to reveals of Robert Pattinson’s transformation to the next Caped Crusader. Last month Director Matt Reeves posted a first look at Pattinson in his Batsuit ahead of a whole slew of leaked production images of the Batcycle and a scene in a cemetery. Reeves went back to Twitter again this week to unveil Pattinson’s Batmobile. According to THR

“The Batmobile’s appearance in Reeves film is the first time since Batman (1966) and its TV series of the same name, which featured a Lincoln-Futura, that the vehicle actually retains the shape and body of a car, one you could picture driving down the highways without overturning everything in its path.”  

How excited are you to see our Cedric Diggory as the next Defender of Gotham? Might the next reveal include an image of Pattinson with Fantastic Beasts Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman or Colin Farrell as the Penguin? We can’t wait and we’ll deliver the news to you via Owl Post as soon as we hear!

Jason Isaacs Returns to Television

As Harry Potter fans know, Jason Isaacs, the brilliant actor who played Death Eater Lucius Malfoy, is no stranger to the role of baddie. Aside from his Death Eater roots, his resume boasts a daunting list of villains including Peter Pan’s Captain Hook, Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot, Dr. Hunter Hap in Netflix’s since cancelled sci-fi fantasy The OA and Captain Lorca in season one of Star Trek Discovery just to name a few. It’s no surprise then that the creative team behind the upcoming family medical drama Good Sam tapped Isaacs to play the series antagonist opposite co-star Sophia Bush. According to Deadline, here’s the synopsis and description of Isaacs’ character Dr. Paul Griffith,

“Good Sam centers on Sam (Bush), a talented yet stifled heart surgeon who embraces her leadership role after her renowned and pompous boss, Griff (Isaacs), falls into a coma. When he awakens and wants to resume surgery, however, it falls to her to supervise this overbearing blowhard who never acknowledged her talents — and also happens to be her father.

Isaacs’ Dr. Paul ‘Griff’ Griffith is the brilliant, arrogant, unrivaled Chief of Cardiothoracic surgery, a wizard with a scalpel. He’s notoriously hard on his residents – none more than his equally gifted daughter, Sam (Bush). But when he suddenly awakens from a months-long coma, he learns that Sam has become the new Chief of Surgery. The only way to resume his job is as her subordinate, an arrangement which, for him, proves harder than heart surgery.”

After the abrupt cancellation of The OA two seasons in we couldn’t be happier to hear that Isaacs is headed  back to the small screen. We’ll keep you posted on a premiere date for Good Sam on CBS.

Another villain on deck for Isaacs is in the upcoming animated Scooby Doo movie Scoob. The big screen reboot from Warner Bros and Harry Potter director Chris Columbus features Isaacs voicing one of the iconic antagonists from the original Hanna Barbera cartoons, Dick Dastardly, who brought catch phrases like “Drat, drat and double drat!” and “Curses, foiled again!” into pop culture vernacular. Isaacs’ character, a pilot and race car driver whose vehicles carry bombs and traps, will be the main villain in the upcoming film that chronicles how the Scooby Doo gang all met. Scoob opens in theaters May 15, 2020. Take a look at the final trailer where we finally get a sneak peek of Isaacs’ Dick Dastardly:

Evanna Lynch Leads EU Short Film Series

Prominent British news outlet The Guardian has teamed up with U.K. production company Headlong to present a series of short films highlighting various individuals across Europe. The series, Europeans is part of the “This is Europe Project” commissioned by The Guardian along with the 2017 drama series Brexit Shorts.

One of the films in the new collection titled Fake Tan features a solo performance by Irish actress Evanna Lynch, best known to Potter fans as quirky Ravenclaw pal Luna Lovegood. In the short she plays the role of an Irish woman whose English boyfriend is returning home to the U.K., perhaps asking how the end of their romantic union mirrors the collective effects of Brexit? Take a look at Fake Tan and see for yourself:

Coronavirus Concerns Postpone Bond 25 Premiere

Ralph Fiennes, Harry Potter’s Dark Lord, is set to reprise his role as MI-6 Head Gareth Mallory or M in the upcoming James Bond film No Time to Die. Due to news this week of the rapidly spreading coronavirus, producers and MGM Studios have opted to delay the premiere of the 25th installment of the Bond franchise from April to November.

Screen International deputy editor Louise Tutt told BBC News this about the decision,

“about mitigating the financial risk”[…] “I think they’re doing it in anticipation of cinemas closing around the world. Most of them have already closed in China, so even if not another single cinema closed in the world they’d lose the world’s second-biggest box office [market] for what’s anticipated to be the biggest US release of the year.”

To date, we haven’t reported any other epidemic-related delays or closings relative to the Wizarding World except Universal Japan’s closure until Mid-March. No Time To Die is now set to open November 12, 2020 in the U.K. and November 25, 2020 in the U.S.

Eddie Redmayne Named the Face of Mobile Coms Company OPPO

We don’t report on every endorsement for Wizarding World actors, but this campaign for Chinese electronics and communications company OPPO struck us as pretty magical. Thanks to a heads up from one of his fan accounts, Bespoke Redmayne, we were made aware of this new promotion starring Eddie Redmayne which shows him in the process of preparing for a stage role. We couldn’t help but hope that he puts as much care into recreating Newt Scamander for each scene of Fantastic Beasts. You’ll see what we mean below at approximately minute 38:40.

In other Redmayne news, according to Showbiz411, the Academy Award winning actor will be stepping into the role of the title character in the upcoming Disney remake of the Scrooge story, Jacob Marley. Bill Condon, director of the 2017 Beauty and the Beast is said to be at the helm of this retelling seen through the eyes of Scrooge’s business partner. No other news on this project yet. We hope it’s a musical! We’ll keep you posted.

A Preview for Kenneth Branagh’s Artemis Fowl

The official trailer for the long-awaited film adaptation of Artemis Fowl arrived earlier this week. The Disney fantasy flick is directed by acclaimed stage and screen actor Kenneth Branagh, who played Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and stars Fantastic Beasts Percival Graves, Colin Farrell. If you’re not familiar with the popular YA novel by Eoin Colfer, here’s the story,

The eponymous Artemis Fowl is essentially a pre-teen Lex Luthor, utilizing his family’s vast fortune to wage war on magical creatures he hates/fears. The premise of the first book is that Artemis and his bodyguard kidnap a fairy cop so they can get some of her fairy gold as a ransom, which ends up getting them involved in the drama of the fairy world and gradually softening Artemis up until he becomes more of a good guy (or at least less of a bad guy). 

Take a look at first full trailer for Artemis Fowl below. The film, which is being touted as perhaps the next Harry Potter, opens worldwide May 29, 2020.

A New Trailer for Julie Walters in The Secret Garden 

Recently Julie Walters, the beloved British actress who played Mrs. Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter films, revealed that she’s been successfully treated for stage 3 bowel cancer. During her BBC interview to share the news, she said that as a result of the experience The Secret Garden may be her last film, which makes this first full trailer a pretty special one. For fans that are unfamiliar with the premise of the classic based on the 1911 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, here’s the official synopsis:

“THE SECRET GARDEN starring Colin Firth, Julie Walters and Dixie Egerickx is a new take on the beloved classic novel of the same name written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Set in England during a new time period in 1947, the film follows a young orphan girl who, after being sent to live with her uncle, discovers a magical garden on the grounds of his estate.”

This latest revival of The Secret Garden comes from Wizarding World producer David Heyman and was written by Cursed Child playwright Jack Thorne. Another bit of trivia for Harry Potter fans: Walters’ character Mrs. Medlock was played by another well-loved witch from Hogwarts in the 1993 version of the movie; Dame Maggie Smith, Professor Minerva McGonagall.

Take a look at the new U.S. preview for The Secret Garden which should open in theaters later this year (U.S. date to be confirmed), with the U.K. release due April 10th 2020.

A Look at Kevin Guthrie in The English Game

Fans may not know the name Kevin Guthrie but they will definitely remember his Fantastic Beasts character Abernathy, the American wizard who left MACUSA for a place on the dark side as one of Grindelwald’s acolytes. Before we might see his return to the Wizarding World, he’ll be seen starring on the small screen in the upcoming series from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellows, The English Game. Here’s how the series is described by Mashable,

“Set in the 19th century, the series follows two footballers on different sides of a class divide. Judging by the trailer, you can expect some North and South-style industrial mill scenes, along with what looks like a very generous helping of the upper echelons — a Fellowes classic.”

Get a sneak peek of the six-part drama The English Game below before it premieres on Netflix March 20. 

That ends our round-up for the first week of March! Join us back here again next time and stay tuned for a House Pride themed GIVEAWAY we’ll be announcing on Monday!