HYPEDive into the world of magic in the upcoming Warner Bros’ release, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
In case you need a little refreshing on the Harry Potter series, take a look at this 99 second summary of all the books.
This will be the first Harry Potter movie set in J.K. Rowling’s world of wizards that we’re going in knowing absolutely nothing about – after all, this movie is based off Harry’s old textbook about magical creatures.
British self-styled ‘magizoologist’ Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) arrives at the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA) in 1926, when his magical suitcase disappears and the creatures inside escape. This sends MACUSA scrambling after Newt, and threatens to strain the relations between the wizards and the ‘No-Maj’. ‘No-Maj’ is the American equivalent of the British ‘Muggle’, a person with no magic.
Teaming up with two witches, Tina (Katherine Waterston) and Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol) , as well as a ‘No-Maj’, Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), the 4 go on an adventure to recapture the animals in New York during the Jazz Age.
Some may recognize a familiar name from the movie trailers – Albus Dumbledore. We know that Newt had been expelled from Hogwarts when Dumbledore was but a lowly Transfiguration teacher, and that Newt was a former Hufflepuff [one of the houses in Hogwarts] from the yellow and black scarf he carries in his suitcase.
Since Dumbledore has been a mentor to both Harry and Newt, how do the two of them compare?
“My heroes [Harry and Newt] are always people who feel themselves to be set apart, stigmatized or ‘other-ed’,” said Rowling in a featurette of the film. “That’s at the heart of most of what I write, and it’s certainly at the heart of this movie.”
In fact, Redmayne also said in the same featurette that “Newt feels more at home with creatures than he does with human beings.” Making his way through a strange country that he doesn’t fully understand is part of the wild goose (or should we say thunderbird?) chase which makes this story much more delightful.
This is Rowling’s very first screenwriting project, giving us even more of an official Potter experience than ever before. With the director of the last 4 Harry Potter films, David Yates, at the helm, we shall have to wait to see what other wonders Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them can offer us.
Even before the movie has been released, a sequel has been confirmed. This year on July 31 2016, the book version of the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, based in the original story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, was released as well. We can clearly see the resurgence in Pottermania this year.
The movie opens in cinemas November 18, 2016.