Fantastic Beasts 2: Cast and plot details revealed as filming starts

Warner Bros. has released some intriguing new details regarding the sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, currently titled Fantastic Beasts 2.

As expected, the studio has confirmed Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, and Dan Fogler — who play magizoologist Newt Scamander, Auror Tina Goldstein, sister Queenie, and No-Maj Jacob — will return to the series.

Pirates of the Caribbean leading man Johnny Depp will also return as the Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, with Jude Law debuting as future Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

Intriguingly, the fate of Ezra Miller’s haunted character Credence will be revealed, the actor returning once more, while Zoë Kravitz’s Leta Lestrange — who was seen in a photograph — will also feature.

Another addition to the cast includes War & Peace as the “famed Theseus Scamander”, Newt’s older brother, with Avengers: Age of Ultron’s Claudia Kim joining as a mysterious “young woman we first meet as a featured attraction at a wizarding circus”.

Fantastic Beasts 2 have also been confirmed to take place just months after the first film, in 1927, with Grindelwald having escaped prison and started recruiting other wizards.

“The only one who might be able to stop him is the wizard he once called his dearest friend, Albus Dumbledore,” reads the synopses. “But Dumbledore will need help from the wizard who had thwarted Grindelwald once before, his former student Newt Scamander.”

The film will also see the adventure move from New York, to London, and then onto Paris where there will be “some surprising nods to the Harry Potter stories that will delight fans of the books and film series.”

Other cast additions include William Nadylam as a wizard named Yusuf Kama, Ingvar Sigurdsson as a bounty hunter named Grimmson, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Skender, who runs the wizarding circus, and Kevin Guthrie as Abernathy, Tina and Queenie’s boss at MACUSA (Magical Congress of the USA).

Directed by David Yates once more, filming has already begun at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden with the film expected to reach cinemas 16 November, 2018.