Cool Young Pope Jude Law to Play Cool Young Dumbledore in ‘Fantastic Beasts 2’
Ever since Albus Dumbledore was name-dropped in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we’ve been anxiously awaiting word of who might play the young version of everyone’s favorite wise old wizard. Given the (mostly) excellent casting for the first film in the new Harry Potter spinoff franchise, we knew it had to be someone good. Warner Bros. definitely didn’t disappoint, as the studio has tapped Jude Law to play the younger iteration of the future headmaster of Hogwart’s in the Fantastic Beasts sequel.
Per Variety, Jude Law will go from playing cool young Pope to cool young(er) wizard in the role of Albus Dumbledore for the upcoming sequel to last year’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Potter vet David Yates is returning to direct the untitled sequel, which will continue to follow the adventures of Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander, a shrewd and eccentric magizoologist.
In the first film, Colin Farrell’s Percival Graves revealed that Dumbledore was the one professor at Hogwart’s who defended Newt and lobbied against his expulsion from the prestigious school of witchcraft and wizardry. Fantastic Beasts also introduced the villain Gellert Grindelwald, a character who shares a significant piece of history with Dumbledore in Potter mythology.
Following the release of the film, Yates confirmed that the young Dumbledore would appear in the sequel — though it’s unclear if he’ll return for additional sequels in the franchise, which has been planned as a five-film series. Harry Potter author and Fantastic Beasts scribe J.K. Rowling also wrote the screenplay for the sequel, which is set to hit theaters on November 16, 2018.