Harry Potter fans gathered in theaters around the world with a fervor not seen since The Deathly Hallows - Part 2 hit theaters in 2011, Thursday. As part of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Themglobal fan event, the movie's filmmakers and cast assembled in London and Los Angeles for a livestreamed Q&A, teasing new footage and sharing a few behind-the-scenes details.
The Harry Potter scribe and Fantastic Beasts screenwriter broke the news during a surprise appearance at a fan event and cast Q&A that was broadcast live on the film franchise's Facebook page.
The first Fantastic Beasts film, which has a screenplay written by Rowling, arrives in theaters on Nov. 18. Warner Bros. has alreadydated a sequel for 2018, which is said to move deeper into "an increasingly dark time for the wizarding world, where Newt and our other heroes have to decide on their allegiances."
The biggest news was that J.K. Rowling is planning a total of five Fantastic Beasts movies, but the cast and crew also revealed a few other pieces of new information. Here are six of the most interesting revelations:
1. Grindelwald looms large over Fantastic Beasts
Even before Harry heads to Hogwarts for the first time, he learns about Albus Dumbledore and his epic 1945 duel against the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (thanks to a chocolate frog card on the Hogwarts Express). Rowling explored the relationship between Grindelwald and Dumbledore further in The Deathly Hallows, butFantastic Beasts will introduce the notorious wizard at the height of his power, terrorizing Europe and calling for the wizard domination of Muggles (and No-Majs). Fans in theaters were treated to a screening of the first few minutes of the film, which featured plenty of newspaper headlines about Grindelwald's reign of terror.
2. Dumbledore plays a role, too.
Since Fantastic Beasts takes place in 1926, we shouldn't expect to see too many familiar faces pop up. (Sadly, Harry, Ron, and Hermione weren't born yet.) But Yates revealed that you will hear a little bit about a certain wizard with half moon spectacles.
3. Jon Voight plays a No-Maj newspaper magnate.
While we've learned a lot so far about Redmayne's Newt Scamander and Katherine Waterston's Tina Goldstein, not much has been said about Jon Voight's mysterious character. Voight participated in the fan Q&A live from Los Angeles, where he revealed that he plays a 1920s newspaper magnate named Henry Shaw Sr.
4. Dan Fogler has a familial connection to his character.
Although most of Fantastic Beasts' main characters are witches and wizards, Fogler plays a No-Maj named Jacob Kowalski who accidentally stumbles into the world of magic. And Fogler added that he and Jacob have more in common than just their non-magical tendencies.
5. The entire cast geeked out whenever Rowling stopped by.
Just because they're playing her characters doesn't mean that the cast members didn't get a little starstruck whenever Rowling visited the set. "One of the best moments for us on set was when Jo would come to set," Redmayne said. "I think David found it a mixture of wonderful and mildly frustrating because we would turn into 7-year-olds and would stop work. Jo would come up to us and say, 'I'm working on the new script. I'm not allowed to tell you anything, but..."
6. Newt's adventures are far from over.
As Rowling revealed, she's planning a total of five Fantastic Beastsmovies, and they won't all be in New York. "We next see Newt in another big capital city, and it's not going to be New York," Yates said. "It's somewhere else entirely."
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