Fantastic Beasts 2: New characters and plot revealed as shooting gets underway

As principal photography begins today on the second of five films in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series, Warner Bros. has revealed new characters and a synopsis.

Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne stars once more as wizarding world magizoologist Newt Scamander; alongside Katherine Waterston as Auror Tina Goldstein; Alison Sudol as her sister, Queenie Goldstein; and No-Maj Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski.

Johnny Depp stars as the powerful Dark wizard in the film.  While Jude Law makes his debut in the Harry PotterWorld, as he takes on the role of a young Albus Dumbledore. Credence, whose fate was unknown at the end of the first film, makes a mysterious return, played again by Ezra Miller.  Zoë Kravitz plays Leta Lestrange, who was glimpsed in a photo as a woman from Newt’s past; Callum Turner is the famed Theseus Scamander, a war hero and Auror, who also happens to be Newt’s older brother; and Claudia Kim plays a young woman we first meet as a featured attraction at a wizarding circus.

The film expands the wizarding world, moving from New York to London and on to Paris.  There are also some surprising nods to the Harry Potter stories that will delight fans of the books and film series. And here’s the official synopsis:

The sequel opens in 1927, a few months after Newt helped to unveil and capture the infamous Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.  However, as he promised he would, Grindelwald has made a dramatic escape and has been gathering more followers to his cause—elevating wizards above all non-magical beings.  The only one who might be able to stop him is the wizard he once called his dearest friend, Albus Dumbledore.  But Dumbledore will need help from the wizard who had thwarted Grindelwald once before, his former student Newt Scamander.  The adventure reunites Newt with Tina, Queenie and Jacob, but his mission will also test their loyalties as they face new perils in an increasingly dangerous and divided wizarding world.

Depp returns as Grindelwald.

The ensemble cast also includes 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, whom we met as Tina and Queenie’s boss at MACUSA (Magical Congress of the USA).

David Yates returns to the helm, with production now underway at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, It’s slated for release on November 16, 2018.