J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter spinoff ‘Fantastic Beasts’ premieres in London

Potter fans will likely enjoy this first of a planned quintet of “Fantastic Beasts” outings; newcomers open to a certain, dutiful amount of expository world-building and narrative throat-clearing should get their money’s worth, too.

In a year that has seen the world transform in ways that only Lord Voldemort himself could have imagined, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is the triumphant return to J.K. Rowling‘s wizarding world that we so desperately needed. During his brief stay, events unravel after meeting a No-Maj (American phrase for Muggle-a non-magical person) and cause mayhem for both the wizarding and non-wizarding worlds.

Eddie Redmayne is convinced cell phone footage showing him rehearsing his mating dance for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is “career-ending material”.

Episodic in nature, the film follows “Magizoologist” Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), an awkward British wizard who arrives in America with a magical briefcase full of fantastical creatures.

Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint at the NY premiere of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

In central London’s Soho, just a minute’s walk from the Palace Theatre, where the blockbuster play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is entertaining thousands each night, something equally magical is taking place.

Ten years after the 1997 United Kingdom release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Rowling confirmed what many had already assumed: Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald had engaged in a non-platonic relationship as younger men. If you’re anxious about whether it ruins the “Harry Potter” series, don’t be. She declined to answer a question about Dumbledore’s sexuality, a topic of much controversy and interest, and whether he would be openly gay in the follow-up films.

The upcoming film “Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them” by J.K Rowling has some controversial twists to the story that fans might be interested and excited. During a short stopover in NY, some of his collected beasts are let loose from his magical trunk (as another British import has said, “it’s bigger on the inside”) by hapless factory worker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). (Rowling, who wrote the screenplay for this movie, turned the work into an actual book back in 2001). Some of the burden is lifted because audiences already understand magic from the previous eight films, but due to its being set in an earlier time period, a multitude of characters have to be introduced and explained for the benefit of audience members who haven’t spent hours on Harry Potter Wiki.

The A-list cast also includes Ezra Miller as the troubled young Credence, Jon Voight as Henry Shaw Sr. and Colin Farrell as Percival Graves.

There’s an terrible lot of world building to do in “Fantastic Beasts”, so future installments – this is the first of a planned five-part series – should run smoother. Although Rowling had always had control of how her characters were adapted, this role provided her to address her massive (and aging) fanbase and provide a more serious tone to the films. We got to watch them grow up. But, somehow, it doesn’t hit with the emotional impact that the later Harry Potter movies do.

No two Potterheads are alike, of course, and if you have pored over every bit of writing in the lead up to “Fantastic Beasts”, maybe there will be more from the text to cling to when you finally see the movie. So, when isFantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them 2 coming out?

Although “Fantastic Beasts” focuses on new characters, Rowling confirmed there will be a familiar face in the sequels: the headmaster Albus Dumbledore.