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David Yates sat down with the Los Angeles Times to talk about his first Comic-Con experience (San Diego is hosting this years International Comic Con this weekend) and Fantastic Beasts.

David Yates, David Heyman, and most of the Fantastic Beasts cast are taking San Diego and the 2016 International Comic Con by storm. As a part of Warner Bros most anticipated fall film release, many eyes are on the magical events and activities Fantastic Beasts is hosting at SDCC 2016.

For those of you who have never been to a Comic Con, it is quite an experience–and David Yates is learning this too. Yates is enjoying his first Comic Con, a little sad he’s missed out on other opportunities like this. The LA Times reports on his experience at SDCC and taking the Potter Universe into new, unchartered territory with the more adult Fantastic Beasts films.

It’s kind of hard to believe that you’ve never been to Comic-Con before.

I have so missed that opportunity because everyone — actors, directors, producers — they always tell me what an amazing experience it is. We were always in the thick of one of the “Potter” movies, so I was never able to make the trip. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s such a sort of touchstone of what’s ticking in popular culture. I’m really thrilled. 

The Potter books and the movies got more mature as the characters got older. “Fantastic Beasts” looks like it’s the continuation of that.

“Beasts” hasn’t got any kids in it. Well, it’s actually got one lovely kid called Faith [Wood-Blagrove], who plays a character called Modesty, but generally it’s a film with grown-ups. So it’s a more adult development of what Jo has done before but still with lots of magic, still with lots of fun. It’s the best of both worlds, I think.

I think that what’s interesting is it speaks to Jo’s curiosity about the world and her observation of the world that we see around us. It speaks to themes that are important now, as well as all the lovely magical stuff and her genius for character. Even though it’s set in New York in 1926, she’s interested in themes that resonate now about a divided world and a polarized world and how important it is to recognize otherness and embrace it and not to be afraid of it. That’s always been an aspect of her work, and it becomes more so now.

For all the kids who grew up watching these films — and as I grow old making some of these films — and for everyone who loved the books and grew up with them, I think this will feel like a really interesting return to her universe.

This is the first time people will go into a movie set in that universe and not have a sense of what the characters look like or where the story will go. How do you approach that as a filmmaker?

In a way, it’s quite liberating. Coming at it from a completely blank canvas, to me, is an advantage. People aren’t bringing any sort of baggage with them.

There aren’t bits that are going to be left out. There isn’t the same frustration that can happen if a favorite chapter has been left out of the movie. This is a story from Jo’s imagination, and people are going to hear it first in the theater. And I think that is tremendously exciting.

 

The entire interview can be read here.

Fantastic Beasts’ official Facebook page and Twitter is promising more chances to view and be a part of Fantastic Beast SDCC 2016 events. After today’s open Q&A at 5:30 pm EST, which Leaky will be attending, Fantastic Beasts’ Facebook page will continue live coverage of the panel and cast discussion. See below:

Can’t make it to #SDCC2016? See the magic of the #FantasticBeasts cast at 10:10pm on our Facebook page! pic.twitter.com/2PsTdh9yIG

— Fantastic Beasts (@BeastsMovieUK) July 23, 2016

Harry Potter direct David Yates, and Harry Potter producer David Baron, sat down for a an interview about their most recent collaboration, The Legend of Tarzan. The new live-action take on the classic tale (made famous among younger generations by Disney’s animated feature film) hits theaters this week (already in theaters in the USA)–introducing audiences to Tarzan’s life after he and Jane have married and moved away from the jungle. When trouble arises and new enemies emerge, Tarzan must return to the jungle.

The two Davids sat down with Den of Geek to discuss the film, why they chose the legend of Tarzan, their take on the well-known tale, and more. Den of Geek reports:

Let’s start with something obvious: why Tarzan?

David Yates: Well, I was reading dozens and dozens of scripts, and trying to find something after [Harry] Potter that felt really fun, immersive, and had lots and lots of colours. Potter was a big arena experience, and in terms of storytelling it always had a funny bit, it always had a dramatic bit, always had something that was very emotional, always had something that was very beautifully thematic. It always took you to four or five different places, and as an experience that was always very enjoyable. And I read all these Hollywood scripts that they kept sending me, and none of them did that. They were all very one-note, it was one colour all the way through, whether they were blowing up cities or whatever, and then this script turned up and it said Tarzan on the front, and I said ‘I don’t think I’m going to read that, because I know what that is.’

Then someone who’d read it in my office said ‘I really think you ought to read this, because it’s not what you think.’ Reluctantly, I opened the page, and then I couldn’t stop turning the pages, and there was something about this human being who didn’t really know where home was. He didn’t know if it was in the jungle, or in his country estate in England, and he was stuck between the two, which I found really compelling. And there was something about the themes in the movie, that were beautiful, about reconnecting with the environment, reconnecting with animals, understanding animals, understanding that the environment was being threatened. This old-fashioned, iconic character was somehow connecting with present-day values that were very relevant and very important, and very ‘now.’ But more than anything, it was fun, it was moving, it was romantic, it was exciting, it had all the colours that the Potter movies, for me, would have. I thought ‘fuck, this is the first time I’ve read a script that I really want to go see this movie.’

David Baron: It’s also a very different Tarzan to all the other movies that we’ve seen in the past. For a start, it’s not the story of the foundling in the forest who gets taken back to England by the end, it’s quite the reverse. The character starts in England and goes back to Africa, which is a very refreshing point of view for Tarzan.

That’s something that I’m very curious about. Everything now is an origin story, even things that aren’t really origin stories. Was there pressure to push in? In the clip we saw, there was the beginning of that – was there pressure to make more of that?

DY: There is a bit of origin story in the movie, and there was no pressure from the studio, but when we showed it to the audience, the origins bit that was in there, they loved. When we put a bit more in, they loved it even more, and when we put a bit more in they loved it even more. But the origin story isn’t straightforward origin story, it refracts. There’s a foreground story, and that story of how Jane and Tarzan met, that refracts against the present time. It’s an element. Is it an origin story? Not really.

DB: There’s enough to explain, to people who don’t know the story, it gives them something to hang on to.

DY: It gives you context, and it’s kinda fun.

To read more of this extensive interview with David Yates and David Baren, learn more about the animation of the film, casting choices, and how Jane saves Tarzan, read here.

David Yates, the director of The Legend of Tarzan and the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them did a Q&A with USA Today and told how he pulled off two massive blockbuster releases in one year.

When asked about what exactly attracted him in the script for The Legend of Tarzan, Yates responded that the screenplay, written by Adam Cozad and Craig Bewer, caught his attention due to its “fun elements that you would enjoy when you went into the movie theater” – elements like action, great landscapes and amazing animals. Yates mentions also being excited about the prospect of working in Africa and producing a type of action/adventure/romance film that he hadn’t seen for a while.

The Legend of Tarzan relies heavily on the use of CGI and according to Yates the biggest challenge he faced was creating the world of the movie and making it feel romantic and heightened, yet believable.

Yates was still in the process of filming The Legend of Tarzan when he got the script for Beasts sent for him. Once the filming of Tarzan ended, Yates moved directly to working with Beasts. He gives special credit to his editor Mark Day, who according to Yates, had one machine that had Tarzan on it and one machine that has Beasts on it, which allowed Yates to switch between the two all the time. While the work load seems heavy, Yates says that working on the two films was:

“All doable, all perfectly fine, but literally there wasn’t a single day when I was working Beasts that I didn’t at least peek at Tarzan in some shape or form.”

While to some extent working on the Fantastic Beasts felt like a homecoming to the Harry Potter world familiar to Yates, he says that the experience felt different, because this time around it is not Hogwarts and it is not about kids, but rather about grown-ups, as a result of which the film deals with “very adult themes”.

The Legend of Tarzan premieres in United States on Friday July 1, 2016. The Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will hit theaters later this year on November 18th.

Last December, Warner Bros. released the first trailer for Harry Potter director David Yates’s new film, The Legend of Tarzan. Earlier this week, a second trailer was released for the film, showing more of Tarzan’s origins that have been typically associated with retellings the legend of Tarzan. However, David Yates’s has added in his own spin–those gorillas that raised Tarzan may not be as innocent and loving as Disney told us.

As we mentioned before, there are many other Harry Potter crew members involved with the newest rendition of the legend of Tarzan. David Yates put together his Harry Potter dream team once more for the film with David Barren, Harry Potter producer, Stuart Craig, Harry Potter set designer, and Deathly Hallows editor, Mark Day, are also involved with the film.

Our eyes have been peeled for John Hurts (Mr. Ollivander) and still see no sign of him, though he is listed as being involved with the film. With or without the great wand master, the newest trailer looks fantastic and anticipation for the release of this film is beginning to build.

The new trailer for the film can be seen below.

The film will hit theaters this summer, July 1st in the USA.

Pottermore have released details of an exclusive interview with David Yates on set of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Ezra Miller, Collin Farrell, explosions and (predictably) a lot of rain make an appearance on set, as Yates talks about directing the first of at least three Fantastic Beasts films after directing the last four Harry Potter movies:

‘I’m so excited about this. J.K. Rowling was just inspired to set this movie in 1926 with a completely new set of characters’ he says. ‘I spent seven years doing four of her Harry Potter films so I was desperate to read this script, but also nervous, you know. 

‘It’s a beautiful script; it’s really fun. It’s fresh. She’s got such a gift for creating adorable characters. These ones are special, they’re really moving and funny. You see bits of yourself in them, or you see people you know.’

After watching the trailer on Tuesday, we’re definitely excited to get to know these new characters – with humour, mystery and a fresh new (…old?) era of wizard culture to explore, Fantastic Beasts is certainly gearing up to be a great story!

On Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne):

‘Newt is just fascinating. Probably anyone who’s ever done some sort of geeky thing will relate to him… And filmmaking is a geeky profession,’ he says. ‘Newt’s obsessed with beasts and cataloguing facts about beasts.’

Yates tells the mysterious Pottermore Correspondent that he was ‘obsessed with lenses and cameras’ when he was growing up, and said he ‘really get[s] that aspect of someone who’s truly obsessed with something.’

Lucky us Potterheads have just the right amount of experience with slightly geeky obsessions – Newt sounds right up our alley!

We also get told a little more about Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston):

‘Oh she’s so adorable because she’s sort of so career-obsessed. A lot of us who work really hard can sometimes relate to that. Jacob is everyman, or everywoman, he’s pure and I like that. Queenie’s glamourous and somehow worldly but innocent. They’re so great.’

And finally, Yates addresses how he built the cast around Redmayne’s character:

‘It was like putting a rock band together. We saw so many people. We got Eddie, he was our anchor and I knew once we’d got him, we had to build the world around him. The other characters in this world had to react to him, they had to have a chemical reaction with Eddie. So we went to New York and saw some really fine actors, a lot of them, over two or three days, one after the other in the same room, all of them with Eddie. ‘

‘Eddie has done certain scenes from this movie so many times with so many different actors. When he was with Katherine, there was just something. It was amazing and I just thought, it’s got to be Katherine. It’s got to be. Then with Dan… Eddie and Dan are like Laurel and Hardy, so it had to be him. It’s funny, how they just clicked.’

Read the full interview here, and watch the new Fantastic Beasts trailer here!

Leaky was on the red carpet at Leavesden Studios yesterday interviewing the cast and crew of the Harry Potter films about their favourite bits of the WB Studio Tour, the current projects they're working on and what they think the studio will do for the future of British filmmaking. The red carpet coverage is now online and can be found at the LeakyNews YouTube channel or embedded below.

Those interviewed include Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, Bonnie Wright, Harry Melling, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell, Nick Dudman, David Barron, David Heyman, George Harris and more. You can check out the video below, which also includes a clip of David Bradley (Argus Filch) talking about his upcoming role on Doctor Who and the ways in which it's different from playing Filch. Devin Lytle and Brian Rosenthal from Team StarKid were also there to tell us about their favourite parts of the WB Studio Tour.

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Has this made you more excited for the studio tour and how hard will you be looking at the tables for the profanity Tom scratched in?!

Director David Yates has given a new interview to Vanity Fair, where he discusses again the decision to add the attack on the Burrow scene to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as well as weigh in with some thoughts on the look of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two and his career plans after the series has concluded. Notable quotes are as follows:<>

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The new issue of Mexico's "Cinemania" magazine has a feature on Half-Blood Prince that contains an interview with several of the cast and crew. Courtesy of our friends at Harrypotterla, scans are available here, with the translation here. Of interest are comments by actor Tom Felton on his role as Draco Malfoy as he speaks to the things Draco has been through, including the bullying by his fath... Read the rest of this post

The Telegraph has a new interview with David Yates where he reflects on his second stint as director of a Harry Potter film, this being the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Mr. Yates notes he has now settled in and is feeling more situated as he directs his second Harry Potter film, saying "Oddly, that meant that when I started this one, I was a little bit warier of everything... Read the rest of this post

The Baltimore Sun is running a new article today, featuring an interview with Harry Potter film director David Yates, and also contains new comments from screenwriter Steve Kloves. Mr. Kloves is very complimentary of working with David Yates, and also speaks to the task of transforming the beloved Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling to the big screen.  Of interest are the following comments: "K... Read the rest of this post

In addition to the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Set Report preview posted by TLC and other Potter fan sites, a few more have now appeared online that give some additional quotes and insights of the sixth Harry Potter film. Of interest is more on a scene that was widely reported on several months ago, regarding Harry Potter flirting with a waitress. Rotten Tomatoes reports on this, not... Read the rest of this post