Ever since Warner Bros. announced a Harry Potter spinoff was in development, with a script to be written by none other than J.K. Rowling herself, the rumour mill has been churning with the names of major actors being attached to the lead role of Newt Scamander. Admittedly, Eddie Redmayne has been atop of that list of actors for a long time now and today, we’ve got official confirmation that he will indeed be taking the lead in the production.

Fantastic Beats is an adaptation of a short story which was originally published in the UK as a Comic Relief exclusive novella and focuses on Scamander in New York 70 years before the events of Harry Potter. A ‘magizoologist’, Scamander is the author of Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them, a book which is compulsory reading for First Years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Announced in late 2013, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a planned trilogy of films, the first of which is to be released in the UK on 18 November 2016. David Heyman, producer of the Harry Potter saga, will continue his duties for all of the three films and Redmayne, whose previous credits include 2012’s Les Misérables and, of course, 2014’s Oscars smash The Theory of Everything, is the first actor to be officially attached to the film.