“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ was almost a documentary

The news around the upcoming film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them continues to roll in. Last month, the teaser trailer was revealed, along with some pics of Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander. This week Matthew Lewis, AKA Neville Longbottom, visited set and gave the project two giant thumbs up. And now, we have this fun tidbit from producer David Heyman: Originally, he considered making the film a documentary.

“We were sitting around wondering what else we could do in this world, and [producer] Lionel Wigram, who is the person I first brought the first [Harry Potter] book to, thought about maybe doing a documentary about Newt,” Heyman said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “That idea was floated to Jo, and she responded to doing a film about [the character].”

Heyman, who is producing Fantastic Beasts, was also a producer on the Harry Potter films. In fact, he scored the movie rights to the first film in 1997, before the first book was even published. So it’s safe to say he’s been a part of the Harry Potter world since the beginning, and has been working closely with J.K. Rowling for almost 20 years.

Tonight, Heyman will be honored at the Producers Guild Award with the David O. Selznick Achievement Award. Besides his work on Harry Potter, he’s found success with the Paddington movies and with the much-awarded Gravity, a collaboration with Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón.

Heyman also spoke about J.K. Rowling’s amazing brain and the world she created, saying, “I’m sure Newt Scamander and his story have been in her mind for many years.”

Fantastic Beasts doesn’t come out until November, but we’re already wondering: Will there be a sequel? Multiple films? We can’t help but wonder! Luckily, Heyman has an answer—kind of.

“We’ve talked about making a couple, but with all these things—and this may be a failing of mine—I don’t look at them as franchises; I look at them as films,” Heyman continued. “We want to make each film as good as we can because if you don’t, you won’t have a second film or a third.”

And for the record, we wouldn’t be opposed to seeing a Fantastic Beasts film AND documentary. Just putting that out there.

(Images via Warner Bros.)