Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Trailer Released

The trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore has been released, and you can watch it above! The long-awaited third chapter of the Harry Potter spinoff series will be picking up from the major cliffhanger ending of the previous film, Fantastic Beast: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Ezra Miller's character, Credence Barebone, has been revealed as Aurelius Dumbledore, the estranged brother of Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law). With Aurelius having unlocked his dreaded power as an Obscurus parasite, now under the sway of Grindelwald, the big Wizarding World War is set to begin! 

Set in the 1930s, the story leads up to the Wizarding World's involvement in World War II and will explore the magical communities in Bhutan, Germany and China in addition to previously established locations including Brazil, the United States and United Kingdom. With Grindelwald's (Mads Mikkelsen) power rapidly growing, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) entrusts Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and his friends on a mission that will lead to a clash with Grindelwald's army, and will lead Dumbledore to ponder how long he will stay on the sidelines in the approaching war

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is going to arrive in theaters next spring, having surfed many waves of controversy to get there. The biggest headlines were, of course, the firing of franchise star Johnny Depp, due to his offscreen legal suit with ex-wife Amber Heard. Depp has been recast as Grindelwald, with Doctor Strange star Mads Mikkelsen stepping in to play Gellert Grindelwald. Besides Depp, Ezra Miller had a controversy of his own in 2020, when video surfaced of him in a physical altercation with a woman in a bar, over in Iceland. Earlier this year Kevin Guthrie, who played the minor character of Grindelwald follower "Abernathy" in the Fantastic Beast films was sentenced to prison in Scotland for sexual assault. Then there's the overarching controversy surrounding Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, following public comments she made, regarding the LGBTQ+ community. 

That's all to say: The Secrets of Dumbledore is arriving in a very different world and time than when The Crimes of Grindelwald was released in 2018. Where the Harry Potter franchise stands as a mainstream media property is a big question that needs to be answered, as WarnerMedia has made it one of the cornerstones of its content block. 

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will be released in theaters on April 8, 2022.