Heyman, who confirmed that he will be producing the film, said that Rowling hasn’t turned in a finished script just yet, but that “Jo is at work” and tremendously excited about the project. “She’s not doing it for any other reason other than she loves the world and she had a story that she wanted to tell,” he said.

“It’s incredibly exciting,” he continued. “She doesn’t have to go back to this world, but something pulled her back. This is not Harry Potter. This is not Harry, Ron, and Hermione. This is a separate story within a universe related to the Potter universe.”

“The fact that she’s going to this world means there are stories to tell,” he said. “When I was doing the Harry Potters, what was clear to me is that Jo’s knowledge of this world is infinite. What you read in the books was just the surface of her knowledge. She had notebook upon notebook of stuff. I would call her and say, ‘What’s the sixth use of dragon’s blood?’ and she’d have it at her fingertips.”

“In the fifth film, I think it was, we had the Black family tree,” he recalled. “I called her, and literally 20 minutes later I receive this family tree, via fax in those days, with a hundred names and about six generations with birthdays, death dates, marriages, all figured out. She knew it.”