Skip to footer

'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them': Will Alfonso Cuaron direct?

Reports are conflicting about whether Cuaron may take on the job, but if he does, it will mean that the director of one of the most critically acclaimed 'Harry Potter' films is on board.

|
Murray Close/Warner Bros. Pictures/AP
Director Alfonso Cuaron (r.) talks with 'Harry Potter' actress Emma Watson (l.) on the set of 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.'
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Will “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” director Alfonso Cuaron helm the new “Potter” movie spin-off “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”? 

At the moment, reports are conflicting. Former Deadline editor-in-chief Nikki Finke tweeted that she “hear[d] Alfonso Cuaron … deep in talks to direct JK Rowling's Harry Potter spinoff 'Fantastic Beasts.’”

However, Entertainment Weekly writer Erin Strecker says the publication contacted Cuaron’s representatives and that they “know nothing about the rumors,” so the story is far from confirmed. However, Finke is often a trusted source – Indiewire blogger Kevin Jagernauth noted that Finke’s “track record speaks for itself.”

However, Cuaron as director for the film (or entire franchise) would certainly be an interesting pick. He recently took the Best Director Oscar for his 2013 movie “Gravity” and, while he only directed “Azkaban” in the “Potter” film series, the movie was a departure from the first two films in the series that were directed by “Home Alone” director Chris Columbus. While “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” received a lukewarm reception from critics (“Sorcerer” holds a 64 score out of 100 on the review aggregator site Metacritic and “Chamber” has a 63), “Azkaban” received many positive reviews, currently holding an 82 score on Metacritic. Monitor critic David Sterritt called Cuaron’s film “the creepiest and scariest Potter picture yet – and to my mind, the best.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them': Will Alfonso Cuaron direct?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/0521/Fantastic-Beasts-and-Where-to-Find-Them-Will-Alfonso-Cuaron-direct
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe