'Fantastic Beasts 3' filming confirmed with J.K. Rowling now co-writer

After months of delays, the third movie in the Fantastic Beasts series will commence filming in spring 2020, it's been confirmed.

The Harry Potter spin-off will shoot first in Rio de Janeiro, after being delayed from the beginning of this year, according to Variety.

JK Rowling, who wrote the first two movies solo, is now credited as co-writer for the third, alongside Steve Kloves.

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Kloves wrote seven of the eight Harry Potter movies over a decade. Michael Goldenberg was the screenwriter on 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The first Fantastic Beasts movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, based on the J.K. Rowling guide book published in 2001, introduced Eddie Redmayne as the 'magizoologist' Newt Scamander in 2016.

It made a respectable $814 million (£631.6 million) at the worldwide box office, but its sequel, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald from 2018, with Johnny Depp as the titular villain, saw a significant dip in profits, costing more than the first movie and bringing in just over $650 million (£504 million).

The second movie also introduced Jude Law as the young Albus Dumbledore.

The plan was to make a series of five movies, but there have reportedly been concerns that enthusiasm among audiences has waned somewhat.

Critics were not enamoured with either movie, the second earning a lowly 37 percent critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Guardian noted that 'some of the wonder, novelty and sheer narrative rush of the first film has been mislaid in favour of a more diffuse plot focus, spread out among a bigger ensemble cast'.

According to reports, the third movie will shoot in Rio and Berlin, and will be set in the 1930s.