Eddie Redmayne in Potter spinoff?

Actor is the frontrunner to star in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Eddie Redmayne, who just won the Oscar for playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, may have a few more magic tricks up his sleeve.

Sources say that Redmayne is the favourite to play Newt Scamander in Warner Bros.’ hotly-anticipated Harry Potter spin-off, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Author J.K. Rowling is making her screenwriting debut on Fantastic Beasts, which is said to be “at least” a trilogy.

Redmayne recently wrapped Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl and has yet to receive an official offer. Director David Yates is still also considering a few other actors for the part but the role, according to sources, is Redmayne’s to lose. WB declined to comment on this story. Set in New York roughly seven decades before Harry Potter’s saga starts, Fantastic Beasts is based on the Hogwarts textbook of the same name and follows the adventures of its author, Newt Scamander. Scamander is described as a “magiczoologist,” which in the Harry Potter realm is described as a person who studies magical creatures.

Besides Scamander, there are four other main roles in the pic, two American girls and two American boys, that the studio is currently on the hunt for as well.

“Although it will be set in the worldwide community of witches and wizards where I was so happy for seventeen years, 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,” Rowling explained of the trilogy.

Sources say that Nicholas Hoult is another name the studio has considered for the part after working with him on the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road. The first Fantastic Beasts movie is scheduled to arrive November 18, 2016.