Colin Farrell joins new Harry Potter spin off movie

Colin Farrell is currently on screens in True Detective season 2 and he's just added a major project to his future slate with a role in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

It's a new movie, potentially the first of a series, based in the same universe as Harry Potter but set 70 years before the Boy Who Lived showed up at Hogwarts. It also transplants the story to New York with a look at the life of Newt Scamander - a famed creature hunter who penned a book young Harry uses in franchise.

That all sounds a bit convoluted but it boils down to this - a period film with an entirely new cast about a wizard who researches fantastical creatures. And what a cast it has, including Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne in the title role as well as Katherine Waterston, Ezra Miller and Dan Fogler.

Now Farrell is on board, according to THR, set to play a wizard called Graves who will meet up with Scamander in New York. We don't know anything else about the character yet but he could be a rival magical sort or an ally. With the profile of Farrell you would imagine he's on board for a big role and potentially multiple movies. Let's face it, this movie is going to make huge amounts of cash so its reasonable to assume everyone is locked into long-term contracts.

JK Rowling has written the script based on her own very short novel and frequent Potter helmer David Yates is back on board as director. It sounds like quite the dream team, and you can imagine the hype train is already getting into gear.

Fantastic Beasts hasn't started filming yet but will be inc inemas in November 2016.