Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore Official Trailer Raises The Stakes, Shows Mads Mikkelsen As Grindelwald

The first full-length trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is out. The trailer gives a luxorious look at the movie’s central premise and characters and gives us a taste of what we can expect from Mads Mikkelsen’s portrayal of Gellert Grindelwald as he takes over from Johnny Depp. The core theme continues to be the war that’s brewing between Grindelwald’s followers and the rest of the muggle world that is backed by Dumbledore, Newt Scamander and their team of wizards and a No-Maj who need to disable the dark lord before it’s too late.

Pretty much all characters return from the previous movies save for two. Missing are Katherine Waterston as Tina Goldstein – her sister, Queenie, now a Grindelwald follower, makes an appearance in black attire – and Claudia Kim’s Nagini – perplexing, given her character caused tremendous buzz when she was introduced as Voldemort’s Maledictus snake. Everyone else is back including Ezra Miller as Credence Barebones, now Dumbledore’s long-lost brother Aurelius, as well as Richard Coyle as Aberforth, Dumbledore brother from the books. Dumbledore himself is front and center of this adventure as the guiding force to help Newt, his brother Theseus, No-Maj Jacob and Professor Eulalie Hicks take down Grindelwald.

Not much is teased in terms of the story but we get a glimpse of some important plot points that we can expect to play out. Most notable among these are No-Maj Jacob Kowalski being handed a wand, possibly suggesting his being inducted as a wizard as well as the Room of Requirement making an appearance. There are also telling details worth dissecting such as in the final fight when Dumbledore refuses to violently engage Credence despite the latter’s attacks, perhaps now aware of his brotherly relation to Credence. It should make for a complex dynamic if Dumbledore’s own brother is siding with Grindelwald. Will Credence return to Dumbledore’s side or suffer a terrible fate?

Also noticeable is the increase in action sequences, perhaps a result of Warner Bros. bringing in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them scribe Steve Kloves to with J. K. Rowling to rework the script after the sequel received a lot of criticism, an unintended consequence of a book writer’s screenplay not translating in the best of ways on film. This coupled with the pandemic, led to the additional delay in the film, but hopefully that delay and additional polish also results in a better movie.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore hits theaters on Apr 15, 2022.