March 28, 2024

Preston Barta // Features Editor

The official title for the second chapter in the supposed five-film franchise has been announced by Warner Bros. Pictures. FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD will open one year from today on November 16, 2018.

The film will see Eddie Redmayne returning as the awkward Newt Scamander, who at the end of the first film, witnessed the powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) hiding in the form of another (Colin Farrell, which is a shame because his character was so good). Luckily the MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America) was on the scene to capture him.

In THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD, Grindlewald naturally escapes custody and, in true Voldermort fashion, plans to gather more followers who believe pure-blood wizards should reign supreme. However, as alluded to in the HARRY POTTER films and books, this is a dilemma for the young Albus Dumbledore (now played by Jude Law) to fix, and he isn’t going to leave the wizarding world more divided.

The film also stars Katherine Waterson, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller (curious to know how they will explain this one), with Carmen Ejogo and Zoë Kravitz. It is being directed by David Yates (FANTASTIC BEASTS, and HARRY POTTER 5-7 Pt. 2), from an original screenplay by HARRY POTTER author J.K. Rowling.

(Left to right) Jude Law plays a young Albus Dumbledore, taking on the mantle of one of 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 (though, it looked pretty clear he died); Claudia Kim appears as a Maledictus, the carrier of a blood curse that destines her ultimately to transform into a beast; Zoë 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 Waterson 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 in Warner Bros. Pictures’ FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD.

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD opens one year from today on Nov. 16, 2018.

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