Details on Fantastic Beasts sequel

WARNER BROS has unveiled further plot details for the sequel to J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as principal photography kicks off for the film.

The as-yet-untitled feature – which started shooting in the UK on July 3 at Warner Bros Studios Leavesden outside London – will pick up months after the events of Fantastic Beasts.

After having escaped, Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) is gathering more followers to his cause – to elevate 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 – the young Albus Dumbledore (to be played by Jude Law) – who calls upon his former student, magical beasts lover Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to help him defeat the villain.

The alliance also sees the return of original characters such as Tina (Katherine Waterston), Queenie (Alison Sudol), Jacob (Dan Fogler), and Ezra Miller as Credence, who “makes a mysterious return”.

New faces include Zoë Kravitz (who will play Leta Lestrange) as well as Callum Turner (as Newt’s brother Theseus Scamander, a “war hero and Auror”) and Claudia Kim (as an unnamed woman who is introduced “as a featured attraction at a wizarding circus”).

Others in the cast are William Nadylam, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and Kevin Guthrie.

The Fantastic Beasts sequel will also move the action from New York to London to Paris, with the film to also include “some surprising nods to the Harry Potter stories that will delight fans of the books and film series”, according to the studio.

David Yates, who helmed the original feature, is also back behind the camera to direct from a script penned by Rowling.

The untitled sequel is slated to open in cinemas on Nov 16, 2018. – AFP-Relaxnews