David Yates

How do you make a successful Harry Potter prequel without Harry Potter? J.K. Rowling’s new spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, travels back nearly 70 years to 1926 before the events of the first Potter movie to tell a whole new story in a new setting with (almost) all new characters. Reviving the magical universe from the second biggest franchise of all time is a pretty risky move, but Fantastic Beasts does a good job of blending the familiar with the new.

Fans love consistency. That’s part of what has made the Marvel Cinematic Universe such a hit: each movie has the same comfort level as our dogeared childhood copies of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels. Even when the names behind the camera change, we can be assured of the same familiar faces, the same balance of humor and solemnity, the same polished veneer regardless of character. But while Marvel may choose to have multiple directors adhere to their famous house style, it seems that Warner Bros. has gone a different route with the Harry Potter universe: just have one person shoot the whole darn thing.

The rumors are true: not only will Johnny Depp have a role in the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as well as being cast in the sequel, the mystery character he’s playing is none other than Gellert Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore’s friend/crush-turned-sworn-enemy back when both wizards were young and full of ambition.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is already looking at four more sequels, despite the fact that the first isn’t even out in theaters yet. The folks Warner Bros. seem pretty sure they have a hit on their hands. While we don’t know a whole lot about the second one, other than it’s set in Paris and will star Johnny Depp in some capacity, we’ve heard as of today that the movie is casting, and looking for one very exciting role: Albus Dumbledore. You might’ve heard of him.

Leading up to the 15th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on November 16, we’re looking back on the series and rewatching one movie each week to see how they hold up.

The first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find spin-off relocates J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world to American, but don’t expect the next four films in the franchise to take place in the U.S. Director David Yates revealed last month at a Global Fan event that the sequel will find Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander in another big city that’s not New York. Now we have confirmation of where that location will be: Paris!

Thursday brought some big news for Harry Potter fans, namely that a five new movies are on the way. During a Global Fan Event for ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,’ J.K. Rowling announced that the Harry Potter prequel spinoff will be followed by four sequels, and that she’s already completed the script for the second film. The event featured a live-streamed panel with the movie’s cast, then afterwards showed the audience an exclusive sneak peek of the new movie.

We’ve seen a handful of teasers and glimpses at Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them already, but the first full trailer has arrived and it’s the most magical one yet, literally. J.K. Rowling’s spinoff shows us the American wizarding world in the early 1900s as we follow Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander, a British magizoologist who travels to New York City with a suitcase fu

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them hits theaters in November, returning Harry Potter fans to J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world — or a different corner of it, anyway. Warner Bros. brought the first film in their magical spinoff trilogy to Comic-Con 2016, where they debuted a rather, uh, fantastic new trailer featuring plenty of beasts, indeed.

Not to be outdone by Wonder Woman and The LEGO Batman Movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has also gotten its own special poster for Comic-Con 2016 — what, you didn’t really think the first film in a new Harry Potter spinoff trilogy would appear in Hall H without debuting a new poster, did you? In any case, the new poster is definitely in the spirit of Comic-Con, and it looks like something you might actually want to display on your wall.