Yesterday Warner Bros. gave us a tease from the Fantastic Beasts sequel, with a picture of the world’s most famous wand and the wand we think defeated it. But today we got a whole lot more, namely our first look at the cast, including Jude Law as Dumbledore, and the film’s official: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
In one year, return to the Wizarding World with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. #MagicInProgress #FantasticBeasts pic.twitter.com/8aWj8xhGj5
— Fantastic Beasts (@FantasticBeasts) November 16, 2017
With the movie set to hit theaters one year from today (November 16, 2018), Warner Bros. has provided us with our first official cast photo. The image starts out as a sophisticated portrait of returning and new characters alike, before turning into the kind of moving image that can only be found adorning wizards’ stairwells. It’s a stylish tableau, confirming one big return we were hoping for, and also hinting at the relationships that will be a major part of the film.
As of the new film, Johnny Depp’s Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald has escaped from MACUSA 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,” according to Warner Bros’ press release. That will lead to Dumbledore, played by Jude Law and that wonderful beard, to seek out his former student Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, to help in the fight.
“Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world,” and that could mean some very difficult decisions for Newt himself. As it also turns out, his older brother Theseus, played by new addition to the cast Callum Turner, is engaged to Leta LeStrange. The first film revealed that Leta (played by Zoe Kravitz, though only seen in the form of a photograph) and Newt had some kind of (likely romantic) relationship before—one that seems to have ended badly. Part of Newt’s fight against Grindelwald could also be complicated by a love triangle with his own brother. Factoring in the influence the LeStrange family is likely to have on Theseus, we doubt the brothers will be fighting on the same side.
Complicating things even further for Newt is that all of this will be happening right when the book he is most famous for hits store shelves.
A newly published author must have a book launch party. Newt Scamander has been busy. #MagicInProgress #FantasticBeasts #WizardingWednesdays pic.twitter.com/lvS4TiZXpJ
— Fantastic Beasts (@FantasticBeasts) November 1, 2017
The big news though is that Ezra Miller’s Credence, the Obscurial last seen disappearing in a haze of black smoke, will also be returning. His fate at the end of the first movie was ambiguous, but the smart money was always on him coming back.
And since this is still a Fantastic Beasts movie, new addition Claudia Kim will play Maledictus, a main attraction of a magical zoo. She is “the carrier of a blood curse that destines her ultimately to transform into a beast,” which makes her very different from any character we met in the first movie.
Also returning are Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol as Tina and Queenie Goldstein and Dan Fogler as the No-Maj Jacob Kowalski, with David Yates back in the director’s chair working with a script from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is only the first of four sequels to the 2016 film, which means Grindelwald likely won’t answer for any of his crimes in this entry, but also that we have so much more time to spend with Jude Law’s Dumbledore beard. Seems like a good trade-off for dealing with a Dark Wizard.
What do you think of all this news? Do you feel like you drank Felix Felicis, or is this the work of a Dark Wizard? Cast a spell with your thoughts in our comments below.
Images: Warner Bros.
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