Watch the first trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, wherein Warner Bros. tries to reverse the franchise’s flagging fortunes.
At this point, the controversy surrounding Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts franchise — the studio’s Harry Potter prequel series — may be more interesting that the movies themselves. First there was the recasting of villain Gellert Grindelwald; Johnny Depp played him in the first two movies, but Mads Mikkelsen will play him in the third. Then there’s Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, who wrote the screenplay for the movies. You’ll notice that her name isn’t featured prominently in the trailer, probably because Warner Bros. is trying to downplay her involvement since she made the #stunningandbrave decision to out herself as a transphobic bigot.
And then, most importantly, there’s the fact that the Fantastic Beasts movies themselves have just been…sorta lame? The first one was alright, but the second one pleased pretty much no one, and made far less at the box office. And Warner Bros. has three more planned.
We’ll see if they can turn it around with The Secrets of Dumbledore. Watch the trailer below:
It looks like this movie will take the story back to Hogwarts after visiting the iconic location briefly in The Crimes of Grindelwald. Jude Law plays a young(er) Albus Dumbledore, who will be the headmaster of the school when Harry Potter himself attends it later in life.
The trailer looks okay, I guess? If the point of these movies is to tell a wholly different story than the original then I’m not sure that hanging out at Hogwarts and including winking nods to the progenitor series is the best idea, but I hope it makes Harry Potter fans happy.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore comes out in theaters in April.
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