J.K. Rowling

Leading up to the 15th anniversary of ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ on November 16, we’re looking back on the series and rewatching one movie each week to see how they hold up.

Thursday brought some big news for Harry Potter fans, namely that a five new movies are on the way. During a Global Fan Event for ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,’ J.K. Rowling announced that the Harry Potter prequel spinoff will be followed by four sequels, and that she’s already completed the script for the second film. The event featured a live-streamed panel with the movie’s cast, then afterwards showed the audience an exclusive sneak peek of the new movie.

The very first Harry Potter movie opened 15 years ago next month. Fifteen years. A lot has changed in blockbuster movies over the past decade and a half – superheroes are now front and center, CG has advanced to remarkable degrees, and remakes, prequels and spin-offs are filling the movie theaters. But J.K. Rowling’s magical world was one of the most original series of its time. Before Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone opened on November 18, 2001, the only major movies for kids born in the ‘80s and ‘90s were animated films from Disney and Dreamworks. The 21st Century also brought with it the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings series, but Harry Potter introduced a whole new era of fantasy blockbusters for kids (Chronicles of Narnia, The Golden Compass, Twilight, etc.). It gave millennials the first major family franchise of their generation.

Much of the appeal of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter website Pottermore lies in the extra bits the site dishes out from time to time, often from Rowling herself, as she expands on the Wizarding World’s universe. To prepare us all for the imminent Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, she’s published a few short histories of magic in America, where the film takes place. Today, she came out with another about the formation of MACUSA, the governing body of magic in the U.S., and how it fits in with American history as we know it.

The final Harry Potter novel was full of grand battles and grander revelations, but it also featured a tiny detail that radically changed the saga’s timeline. Although J.K. Rowling’s first book in the beloved series was published in 1997 and the final book in 2007, a date on a gravestone revealed that the events of the final novel take place in 1997. That means that Harry Potter himself was born in 1980. Which means that he’s 35 in 2015. And according to Rowling herself, that makes today, September 1, 2015, the first day of school at Hogwarts for Harry’s eldest son.

In news that should surprise absolutely no one, it was revealed today that 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,' the first cinematic spin-off from the massively popular 'Harry Potter' series, won't be a standalone film. Warner Bros. is betting heavily on their return to J.K. Rowling's wizarding world and have announced that the adventures of magical animal specialist Newt Scamander will be a trilogy.

The saga of Harry Potter may have come to a definitive end with 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,' but his mysterious wizarding world will live on! We already knew that original Potter Author J.K. Rowling would be making her screenwriting debut with upcoming spinoff film 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,' but now we know when we'll be able to see the movie!

The boy who lived continues to live on. Two years after the last 'Harry Potter' movie hit theaters (and six years after 'Deathly Hallows' was published), author J.K. Rowling is working on a Potter prequel that would follow a young Harry as an orphan, before his time at Hogwarts.

While J.K. Rowling is one of the biggest selling (and richest) authors in the world, she has never written a movie screenplay. But, when you're the creator of the billion dollar 'Harry Potter' franchise, even a first time writer can make some creative demands. Rowling will write the screenplay for the forthcoming 'Harry Potter' spinoff 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' and her contract wit