It begins! The first trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them debuted early Wednesday.
The new Fantastic Beasts announcement trailer introduces us to J.K. Rowling’s vision of the American Wizarding World in the 1920s, which Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) will be visiting on his beast-documenting journey. Watch below!
The trailer opens with Newt whispering, “Lumos Maxima,” similar to how Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban began.
But the first person we see is actually Porpentina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), Newt’s future wife! She tells what appears to be the American version of the Wizengamot about Newt’s accident.
It seems that Newt has created his own problem: He arrives in New York with a case full of fantastic beasts… and those beasts escape. Now, Newt and Porpentina must work together to catch ’em all. (We ship it already.)
Some other cool things to note: Where the WB logo would get progressively more dirty and rusty as the Harry Potter films went on, it’s now clean again, signalling the start of a new adventure. The music also calls back to John Williams’ classic “Hedwig’s Theme,” which is both wonderful and heartbreaking.
Update: We overanalyze the Fantastic Beasts trailer like true Harry Potter fans!
In many ways it feels like a new era is beginning for Harry Potter fans with the release of this trailer. It’s been four and a half years since the last Harry Potter movie hit theaters, and at the time we thought it was all over for the fandom. Who would’ve thought we’d be sitting here only a few years later discussing a new Wizarding World story from J.K. Rowling?
A new synopsis from WB reads, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident…were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.”
What’d you think of the first ‘Fantastic Beasts’ trailer?
Note that this is only the announcement trailer, meaning there’s not a whole lot of footage to work with. We didn’t even see any of the fantastic beasts!
Hit the comments to start the discussion with fellow fans! Expect more in-depth coverage about the trailer here on Hypable later today. We’ll also be releasing a new episode of MuggleCast to discuss the trailer soon.
One thing’s for sure: J.K. Rowling is more excited than anyone.
.@1accidentalpoet I can't tell you what I'm most excited about in #FantasticBeasts because SPOILERS!
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 15, 2015
Fantastic Beasts opens in theaters November 18, 2016. It’s directed by David Yates (who helmed the final four Harry Potter movies) and written by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
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