Fantastic Beasts carry Harry Potter back to the silver screen

The Harry Potter films will live again. Warner Bros, the studio behind the Potter films, has announced it is working on a new feature series in conjunction with author JK Rowling, based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the first-year textbook that Potter uses at Hogwarts school in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

In 2001 Rowling published Fantastic Beasts as a separate book in aid of the Comic Relief charity, with the book purporting to be Potter's actual copy of the textbook, complete with his and his friends' doodles and scribblings. It is a guide to "magizoology", or the study of magical creatures, and was supposedly published in 1918, written by Newt Scamander, who will become the central character of the new film.

Rowling will work on the screenplay of the new film – her first – and the hope is that it will expand into a franchise along the same lines as Potter. The author said in a statement: "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world ... Newt's story will start in New York, seventy years before Harry's gets underway."

Rowling said that the studio came to her first with the suggestion, but she said she made her own bid to be involved. "The idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of Fantastic Beasts, realised by another writer was difficult. Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it ... As I considered Warners' proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn't dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros."

Kevin Tsujihara, Warner Bros CEO said: "We are incredibly honoured that Jo has chosen to partner with Warner Bros. on this exciting new exploration of the world of wizardry which has been tremendously successful across all of our businesses... We know that audiences will be as excited as we are to see what her brilliant and boundless imagination conjures up for us."

The eight Harry Potter films, which were released between 2001 and 2011, took over $7.7bn (£4.87bn) worldwide, and is still the most successful film series of all time. Warner has also developed a string of theme parks, video games and digital attractions, for which it clearly anticipates similar exploitation with Fantastic Beasts.