Uh, Really? Fantastic Beasts 3 Is Still Expected To Start Filming Next Week

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So many movies are shutting down production or moving release dates away from spring 2020 due to coronavirus fears. But not Fantastic Beasts 3 -- I guess, for now? -- among a select few other films.

Up until just today, Warner Bros. appeared to be sticking with its filming schedule for most movies, including The Batman. But then even Robert Pattinson's movie moved ... so I'm waiting for the magical mischief to apparate WB's Fantastic Beasts 3 filming to another date. Unless they can't without moving the release date? After all, Ezra Miller supposedly has The Flash movie to make after this, and Johnny Depp has his lawsuits, among other things. The entire cast is busy. But that's also the case for most other movies.

At any rate, as of this exact second on Saturday afternoon 3/14, Fantastic Beasts 3 is reportedly sticking with a filming start date of this coming Monday, March 16, 2020. That surprises me for several reasons -- one being that Fantastic Beasts 3 has already delayed production twice before and I'd imagine the third time would be the charm during a global pandemic.

I can see movies that already started filming wanting to keep going, but Fantastic Beasts 3 hasn't officially started filming yet. Per Variety's Justin Kroll, the third Fantastic Beasts movie in J.K. Rowling's series joins The Matrix 4 in working through COVID-19 -- at least for now. Kroll noted that filming was scheduled to start on the Harry Potter prequel's latest movie this Monday.

The situation is fluid, so we may hear of a change before Monday's start date. Fantastic Beasts 3 was originally expected to start filming last summer. That was delayed until fall 2019 and then delayed again until spring 2020.

Back in February 2019, Dan Fogler -- who plays No-Maj Jacob Kowalski -- said the Fantastic Beasts 3 filming delay from summer to fall was because the movie was going to be "gigantic":

The reason we were given is that the movie is bigger than the first two combined. They needed more time to prep and they didn’t want to rush anything so they pushed it back. I can tell you that we are going to Brazil. I don’t really know much…[laughs]. I’ll get a script closer to when we start shooting.

Fantastic Beasts 3 was delayed again from fall 2019 to spring 2020, in part it seems so J.K. Rowling could work on the script. The second movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, wasn't received as well as Warner Bros. wanted. Rowling got back-up on the screenplay front this time, which is a first for the franchise.

In February 2020, Dan Fogler appeared to show off Jacob's new look on social media, in his own prep to return for Fantastic Beasts 3 filming. Fogler has lost a lot of weight in the time since The Crimes of Grindelwald came out in November 2018, but he knows how the movie could explain it.

Since Fantastic Beasts 3 has already seen some filming schedule changes, I won't be shocked if there are more to come. Stay tuned for any updates on the third of five planned Fantastic Beasts movies. The movie has a scheduled release date of November 12, 2021.