LONDON (Reuters) – Production on the third film “Fantastic Beasts” was halted after a team member tested positive for COVID-19, Warner Bros. said. Pictures on Thursday.
The franchise, a spin-off of the “Harry Potter” books and films, stars Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne as “magizoologist” Newt Scamander.
Filming began in September at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden, just outside London, after the pandemic delayed its start in March 2020, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“A member of the Fantastic Beasts 3 team tested positive for COVID-19. The diagnosis was confirmed as a result of required and continuous tests that all production employees receive, and the team member is currently in isolation,” a spokesman from Warner Bros. said in a statement.
“As a precaution, Fantastic Beasts 3 has stopped production and will return according to safety guidelines.”
The statement gave no further details.
The “Fantastic Beasts” films are set about 70 years before “Harry Potter” and include younger versions of author JK Rowling’s characters, like Albus Dumbledore, played by Jude Law.
The next film, due for release in July 2022, also features Mads Mikkelsen as the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald, originally played by Johnny Depp.
Depp was asked to leave the franchise at the end of last year, after losing a case of defamation against a British tabloid that labeled him a “women beater”.
(This story refills to correct typos in paragraph 8)
(Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Gareth Jones)