Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the second installment in the Harry Potter prequel series, is scheduled to hit theaters on November 16th, 2018. In anticipation, the first teaser trailer has been revealed.
Released in 2016, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was the first Harry Potter film to exist in the Harry Potter Cinematic Universe not featuring its namesake. Rather, Fantastic Beasts serves as a prequel to JK Rowling’s widely popular book/film series, taking place 70 years earlier and telling the story of Newt Scamander, a wizard who has been commissioned to create a reference guide to magical beasts, which later becomes a mandatory textbook at Hogwarts. Even without Harry, Hermione, and Ron, Fantastic Beasts did massive numbers at the box office, earning $814 million to date. The are now multiple sequels in the works, the first being The Crimes of Grindelwald.
As its title suggests, the plot centers on the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (played by Johnny Depp), who has escaped custody and has set out “to raise pure-blood wizards up to rule over all non-magical beings.” Eddie Redmayne, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, and Katherin Waterston all return to reprise their roles from the first Fantastic Beats film, joined by newcomers including Zoe Kravitz, Callum Turner, and Claudia Kim. Perhaps most notably, however, is the addition of Jude Law, who has been cast to play a young Albus Dumbledore.
Watch the trailer below.
The official plot synopsis:
“At the end of the first film, the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Depp) was captured by MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America), with the help of Newt Scamander (Redmayne). But, making good on his threat, Grindelwald escaped custody and has set about gathering followers, most unsuspecting of his true agenda: to raise pure-blood wizards up to rule over all non-magical beings. In an effort to thwart Grindelwald’s plans, Albus Dumbledore (Law) enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world.”
And here are the character descriptions:
“Jude Law plays a young ALBUS DUMBLEDORE, taking on the mantle of one of J.K. Rowling’s most beloved characters; Ezra Miller makes a return as the enigmatic CREDENCE, whose fate was unknown at the end of the first film; Claudia Kim appears as a Maledictus, the carrier of a blood curse that destines her ultimately to transform into a beast; Zoe Kravitz plays LETA LESTRANGE, who had once been close to Newt Scamander but is now engaged to his brother; Callum Turner joins the cast as Newt’s older brother, THESEUS SCAMANDER, a celebrated war hero and the Head of the Auror Office at the British Ministry of Magic; Katherine Waterston returns as TINA GOLDSTEIN, who has been reinstated as an Auror for MACUSA; Eddie Redmayne stars again as wizarding world Magizoologist NEWT SCAMANDER, who has now gained fame in the wizarding world as the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them; Dan Fogler reprises the role of the only No-Maj in the group, JACOB KOWALSKI; Alison Sudol reprises the part of Tina’s free-spirited sister, QUEENIE GOLDSTEIN, a Legilimens who can read minds; and Johnny Depp returns as the powerful Dark wizard GELLERT GRINDELWALD.”