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Fantastic Beasts 2, the full title as yet not known, starts principal photography today, and will be the second of five JK Rowling movies in this series, which began last November with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which was my first foray into the Harry Potter universe (yes, I know I’m a bit behind) and it was fantastic fun!
Directed again by David Yates, Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne will return as wizarding world magizoologist Newt Scamander, along with Katherine Waterston as Auror Tina Goldstein, Alison Sudol as her sister, Queenie Goldstein and Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski, the only No-Maj in the foursome.
Johnny Depp, revealed as Gellert Grindelwald in the first film, stars as the powerful Dark wizard in the new one. Jude Law portrays Albus Dumbledore, one of JK Rowling’s most beloved characters, decades before he becomes Headmaster at Hogwarts. Credence, whose fate was unknown at the end of the first film, makes a mysterious return, played again by Ezra Miller. The stunning Zoë Kravitz plays Leta Lestrange, who was glimpsed in a photo as a woman from Newt’s past, Callum Turner is the famed Theseus Scamander, a war hero and Auror, who also happens to be Newt’s older brother, while Claudia Kim plays a young woman we first meet as a featured attraction at a wizarding circus.
JK Rowling wrote the screenplay for the film, which opens in 1927, a few months after Newt helped to unveil and capture the infamous Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald. However, as he promised he would, Grindelwald has made a dramatic escape and has been gathering more followers to his cause—elevating wizards above all non-magical beings. The only one who might be able to stop him is the wizard he once called his dearest friend, Albus Dumbledore. But Dumbledore will need help from the wizard who had thwarted Grindelwald once before, his former student, Newt Scamander. The adventure reunites Newt with Tina, Queenie and Jacob, but his mission will also test their loyalties as they face new perils in an increasingly dangerous and divided wizarding world.
The film expands the wizarding world, moving from New York to London and on to Paris. There are also some surprising nods to the Harry Potter stories that will delight fans of the books and film series.
The ensemble cast also includes William Nadylam as a wizard named Yusuf Kama, Ingvar Sigurdsson as a bounty hunter named Grimmson; Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Skender, who runs the wizarding circus; and Kevin Guthrie as Abernathy, whom we met as Tina and Queenie’s boss at MACUSA (Magical Congress of the USA), with a number of crew members listed below.
Producers: David Heyman, JK Rowling, Steve Kloves, Lionel Wigram
Executive Producers: Tim Lewis, Neil Blair, Rick Senat, Danny Cohen
Director of Photography: Philippe Rousselot
Production Designer: Stuart Craig
Editor: Mark Day
Costume Designer: Colleen Atwood
Visual Effects Supervisors: Tim Burke, Christian Manz
Fantastic Beasts 2 is due for release on November 16th, 2018 from Warner Bros.
Until then, check out the trailer below for the first Fantastic Beasts movie:
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.