Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Grindlewald has dropped a full trailer teeming with unprecedented enchanted enormity ahead of the film’s April release. The clip showcases the ongoing dark evolution for a Harry Potter prequel franchise that started with a simple formula focused on the whimsical exploits of Magizoologist Newt Scamander and his magic briefcase-bound bestiary. Indeed, the films have taken on existential stakes in their buildup to Gellert Grindlewald’s war to control the wizarding world and beyond.
“Dangerous times favor dangerous men.”
While the above trailer quote, delivered by Jude Law’s 1920s era version of wizened wizard Albus Dumbledore, is a cautionary adage vague enough to apply to the state of our times (although valid for any era), it’s actually an expressed lament from someone who’s witnessing the dark descent of one of his oldest and closest friends. The tragic tale—as expounded in the 2018 sequel The Crimes of Grindlewald—has become the nucleus of a series-dominating conflict in which wizard Gellert Grindlewald gathers allies for a grand conflict that would radically alter the dynamic between the surreptitiously operating world of wizards and the open dominance of magic-oblivious muggles. Indeed, we seem to be witnessing the gathering storm before the commencement of a formal war that’s presumably set to play out across the two confirmed follow-up films remaining in the series.
Check out the Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Grindlewald trailer just below.
Interestingly, given the character’s eponymous positioning in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the portentous quote might just prove to be self-inditing as well. Indeed, while the third film in the Harry Potter prequel franchise is building to a wizarding war waged by Gellert Grindlewald, Dumbledore might just have context-altering skeletons—figurative and maybe even literal ones—that seem destined to be uncovered. That, however, has not stopped the eventual Harry Potter mentor’s apparent protagonist takeover in a film series that started as a dedicated showcase for Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander, who, based on what we can see in the trailer, seems to have become relegated to being a bystander in the escalating conflict wrought by Grindlewald, as played here by Mads Mikkelsen, who replaces a controversy-embroiled Johnny Depp.
Regardless, familiar elements from the Fantastic Beasts films make their return in The Secrets of Grindlewald, as we see shots focused on the comic relief exploits of Newt’s muggle pal, Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), along with the ongoing Grindlewald-manipulated arc of the troubled Creedence Barebone (Ezra Miller), who, pertinent to this film’s titular secrets, was revealed to have been born Aurelius Dumbledore. The film will also see the return of Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner) and see the debut of character such as Eulalie Hicks (Jessica Williams) and Vinda Rosier (Poppy Corby-Tuech).
Akin to its two direct predecessors and the last four Harry Potter films, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was directed by David Yates. The film is scheduled to hit theaters on April 15.
