FANTASTIC BEASTS 2 Gets Callum Turner, Claudia Kim And An Official Synopsis

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is gearing up to be a weird series, with the fifth and final(?) film probably taking place during World War II. This next one however, picks up a few months after the first, and takes our new heroes on the initial steps of what seems like a grand European adventure.

Here’s the official synopsis per WB:

J.K. Rowling wrote the screenplay for the film, which 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. 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.

That pretty much lines up with what we know so far. Jude Laws joins the cast as HBO’s The Young Dumbledore, opposite a returning cool and nice boy Johnny Depp as Wizard Hitler Grindelwald. Zoë Kravitz also returns as love interest Leta Lestrange, hopefully appearing in a larger capacity than just a photograph, alongside newly revealed Claudia Kim (Avengers: Age of Ultron) as an undisclosed character at a wizarding circus, as well as Green Room’s Callum Turner as World War I hero and Newt’s big brother, Theseus Scamander.

Other cast additions include French actor William Nadylam as a wizard named Yusuf Kama, Ingvar Sigurdsson as bounty hunter Grimmson, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as wizard circus ringleader Skender, and Kevin Guthrie as a returning Abernathy, Tina and Queenie’s boss at MACUSA. The most exciting return, however? Ezra Miller’s Credence, the most interesting part of an otherwise dull first entry. No amount of Evil Blond Mortdecai could turn me off of that.

The Fantastic Beasts sequel arrives November 16^th 2018, helmed by five-time franchise director David Yates.