Up until now, the trailers for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, haven’t really shown us what those said crimes were. And while this final trailer doesn’t exactly tell us either, it does give us a better look at Newt Scamander’s new adventure (which involves some crimes), and it also shares with us a very odd Harry Potter connection. This trailer gives us a bit more of Newt’s new quest on Dumbledore’s behalf, taking him to the fantastical side of Paris as the would-be creature collector finds himself thrust into the dark underbelly of Wizard society, while Grindelwald fights for wizards to come out of hiding and use their power to rule the world. Aside from this new connection, there’s not a lot new in the trailer.
But let’s talk about the film for a moment. The studio teamed up with Twitter to exclusive launch the trailer on the social media platform before it went live anywhere else. When the trailer debuted, electronic billboards posted in New York City, Toronto and Tokyo flooded with real-time Twitter reactions from fans using the hashtag #WandsReady. Of course, Eddie Redmayne returns in this highly anticipated sequel as the wizard Newt Scamander, who is called upon by Professor Dumbledore, played by Jude Law. They are on a quest to track down the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald, who is played by Johnny Depp.
What’s great about this movie is that there’s going to be another three movies after this sequel. Rowling said in 2016 that there will be five installments in the Fantastic Beasts film franchise.
What is the big Harry Potter connection? Nagini. By the time we met her in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Nagini is fully a snake. Nagini is a Maledictus, which is a human with a blood curse who can slowly transform into an animal. To be clear, a Maledictus is distinct from an Animagus (a wizard who turns into an animal at will). An Animagus chooses the animal and chooses when to transform. Nagini does have control over her transformation in the trailer, but in the film, her character knows that a full transformation is inevitable.
In the pre-Voldemort Fantastic Beasts universe, Nagini is living as a performer in the traveling Circus Arcanus, serving up her Maledictus routine for paying customers. In the original Potter books and subsequent lore, not much was known about how Nagini and Voldemort ended up meeting, though it was rumored that they got acquainted during his exile in Albania. The new trailer doesn’t give away anything more, but it does show that Nagini always skewed toward the dark side of the wizarding world. Another interesting twist is that Rowling has been holding onto this secret for a long time. 20 years to be exact. Which might change the way that you think of the Harry Potter films.
Regardless of what people think about these revelations, I think it’s going to make for an interesting movie. I cannot wait until it’s release on November 16th, and will definitely be lining up to watch it as soon as I can.