While appearing at San Diego Comic-Con, Warner Bros. gave fans a closer look at the upcoming ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald,’ which will serve as the second in a five-film series. The sequel will feature Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) joining forces with his former Professor, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), to prevent the rise of dark wizard Gellert Grindlewald (Johnny Depp).
All five ‘Fantastic Beasts’ films are rumored to take place in a different part in the world and are meant to highlight the different magic cultures out there. ‘Crimes of Grindlewald,’ for example, takes place in 1927 Paris, rather than the New York setting of the first film. While Grindlewald was captured in the first film, Newt and auror Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterson) are blamed for the Obscurus incident. Credence Barebone, the troubled teenaged wizard who carried the Obscurus parasite returns to cause more trouble for the second film.
Fans of J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’ novels will remember that Grindlewald was not defeated by Dumbledore until 1945, almost 20 years after the setting of the ‘Crimes of Grindlewald.’ This timeline means that we will likely watch the rise of fall of the dark wizard throughout all five films in the franchise. This likely means we will be seeing much more of Law throughout the series. Lucky us!
While the sequel will feature several returning characters like Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and some new fantastic beasts, ‘Crimes of Grindlewald’ will also introduce a new character with even more ties to the ‘Harry Potter’ series. Nicolas Flamel (Brontis Jodorowsky) was the creator of the famed Sorcerer’s Stone, the item that Voldemort was after early on in the ‘Potter’ series. As a longtime friend of Dumbledore’s, Flamel will likely join the battle against Grindlewald to stop him from acquiring the stone.
Connections to the original ‘Harry Potter’ series were admittedly sparse in the first film, but the ‘Crimes of Grindlewald’ and the following films will most likely be filled with callbacks to Rowling’s stories. ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ was the perfect setup for ‘Crimes of Grindlewald’ to delve deeper into the ‘Harry Potter’ mythos, and have some fun along the way!
‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald’ opens in theaters on November 16!
