Fantastic Beasts

Warner Bros. has released a new “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” featurette. The film, which takes place in New York City about seventy years before the events of Harry Potter, follows magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), who must recapture magical creatures that have escaped.

In the featurette, Scamander and his personality are explored in greater depth. It also gives a glimpse into how the magical world operates in North America, specifically with regards to interactions between wizards and muggles (or as they're called in America, “no-maj”). It will be interesting to see how this develops, especially since one of the main characters, Jacob (Dan Fogler), is a no-maj.

The film opens November 18, and also stars Katherine Waterston, Ezra Miller, Alison Sudol, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Ron Perlman, Carmen Ejogo, Jenn Murray, Faith Wood-Blagrove and Colin Farrell.

“Fantastic Beasts” returns the film audience to the wizarding world created by JK Rowling, under the direction of David Yates, who helmed the last four “Harry Potter” blockbusters.

The film 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 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.

The film marks the screenwriting debut of Rowling, with script inspired by the Hogwarts textbook “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, written by her character Newt Scamander.