AceShowbiz -

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" has found a shooting location. U.K. Culture Secretary Sajid Javid announces in an event that the upcoming Harry Potter spin-off is going to be filmed at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in the United Kingdom. The news is later confirmed by WB.

The movie is planned to hit theaters on November 18, 2016. It aims at launching a new trilogy, with two sequels expected to follow. The first installment will be written by J.K. Rowling herself based on the Hogwarts textbook of the same title which features Newt Scamander, the schoolbook's fictitious author in the Potterverse.

It is set 70 years before the events of the "Harry Potter". It's neither a prequel nor a sequel to the "Harry Potter" series, but an extension of the wizarding world. The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to the "Harry Potter" fans, but Newt's story will start in New York, seventy years before Harry's.

Alfonso Cuaron who helmed "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was previously rumored to serve behind the lens for the spin-off, but he denied the report. "I tremendously admire J.K. Rowling, but today, for the present, projects based around lots of visual effects don't attract me," he said. "I'm coming out of a five-year process of doing visual effects and now I sort of want to clean my palate of that a little bit."