Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts to film in Liverpool

The movie prequel to JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels will be filmed in Liverpool later this October.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which stars Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne, will use city centre buildings to replicate 1920s New York.

Warner Bros started shooting at Leavesden studios, Hertfordshire, in August but Liverpool will be the only non-studio location in the movie.

Producer David Heyman said the city "works perfectly for our film".

The film-maker, who produced all eight films in the Harry Potter movie franchise, added: "My mother is from Liverpool and, as a child, we would often visit family there."

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them follows the adventures of Newt Scamander - a specialist in magical animals - who documents the beasts he encounters in the famous Hogwarts School textbook that gives the film its title.

Redmayne, who won the best actor Oscar this year for The Theory of Everything, will film in Liverpool along with about 530 cast and crew, a city council spokeswoman said.

The movie also features actors Samantha Morton, Colin Farrell and young newcomer Faith Wood-Blagrove.

It will be released worldwide on 18 November 2016.

Assistant Mayor Wendy Simon said Liverpool was "one of many locations the production team were looking at".

Liverpool Film Office manager Lynn Sunders added it was "a very lengthy process in terms of securing the filming", and follows the announcement of a new TV and film studio in Liverpool.

The Birkenhead Tunnel was used in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 when the boy wizard and Hagrid rode on a motorbike and sidecar fighting off their enemies.

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