Warner Bros has announced the title of the second installment in the Fantastic Beasts film series, "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald."
The company revealed the title along with a short video showing a first look at the cast of characters included in the upcoming film. The title teased some very important period in the "Harry Potter" lore, when the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, played by Johnny Depp, rose to power with the help of the Elder Wand.
Grindelwald was first referred to in the first "Harry Potter" book, "The Sorcerer's Stone," as a wizard that Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore defeated. In the upcoming film, a young Dumbledore will be introduced. The character will be played by Jude Law.
The two started as allies, according to the lore, as each had found a wizard with power and ambition that equaled his own. They paired up and started making grand plans for the entire Wizard kind, while searching for the powerful artifacts called the Deathly Hollows.
It is unclear if the close relationship between the two powerful wizards and its eventual fallout will be shown in the film. As the film will be set in 1926, this was the time when the bond between the two had already been broken. The future film will most likely depict the violent and brutal rise to power of the dark wizard.
It is interesting how the story will unfold around the series protagonist, Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne. In the first movie, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," Scamander got entangled with the affairs of the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA) as he was searching for the magical beasts that escaped his custody.
In the end, he helped the MACUSA defeat Grindelwald, who had infiltrated their ranks in the guise of high-ranking officer Percival Graves, played by Colin Farrell. The dark wizard, however, ultimately escaped.
Many of the first film's cast will reprise their characters, including Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, and Ezra Miller. "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" will be released on Nov. 16, 2018.
