Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Brings the Harry Potter Nostalgia

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Brings the Harry Potter Nostalgia
Contributor: Lavender Baj and Lifehacker Australia

Brace yourselves because the next instalment in the Wizarding World franchise (aka Harry Potter) has arrived. Here’s what you need to know before you head back into the Wizarding World for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.

What is Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore about?

Fantastic Beasts 3 the secrets of dumbledore
Fantastic Beasts 3 poster, release date Australia. Credit: Warner Bros

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore picks up where the 2018 film The Crimes of Grindelwald left off.

The last film left us on a wild cliffhanger by revealing that Credence Barebone – who is working with Grindelwald – is actually Albus Dumbledore’s long lost family member Aurelius. Sure, this doesn’t fit the original Harry Potter storyline, but who cares? Not me.

This cliffhanger gives us a lot to work with for the third instalment. Either, Dumbledore always knew he had a secret relative, or perhaps his parents never told him and he’s as shocked as we are. OR Aurelius isn’t really his family at all and this is some sort of trick (which means The Crimes of Grindelwald didn’t completely invalidate the original storyline).

Like the other two instalments in the franchise, The Secrets of Dumbledore is written by controversial Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and directed by David Yates. The film was produced by David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves, Lionel Wigram and Tim Lewis. Neil Blair, Danny Cohen, Josh Berger, Courtenay Valenti and Michael Sharp served as executive producers.

The synopsis from Warner Bros:

Professor Albus Dumbledore knows the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald is moving to seize control of the wizarding world. Unable to stop him alone, he entrusts Magizoologist Newt Scamander to lead an intrepid team of wizards, witches and one brave Muggle baker on a dangerous mission, where they encounter old and new beasts and clash with Grindelwald’s growing legion of followers. But with the stakes so high, how long can Dumbledore remain on the sidelines?

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore cast

Fantastic beasts 3
Image: Warner Bros

We’re getting more of Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander. And Jude Law reprises his role as a young Albus Dumbledore.

We’re seeing many familiar faces return for Fantastic Beasts 3, including Katherine Waterston as Tina Goldstein, Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone, Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein, Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski, and Callum Turner as Theseus Scamander.

Additionally, we’ll be seeing Fiona Glascott as Minerva McGonagall, Richard Coyle as Aberforth Dumbledore, Oliver Masucci as Anton Vogel, Victoria Yeates as Bunty, Jessica Williams as Eulalie Hicks, Maria Fernanda Cândido as Vicência Santos, Aleksandr Kuznetsov as Helmut, Wilf Scolding as Workman and Valerie Pachner in an unnamed role.

David Yates is directing.

It was announced last year that Johnny Depp would not be returning to his role as Gellert Grindelwald after the domestic violence allegations and subsequent legal issues he has faced since the release of The Crimes of Grindelwald. Instead, Grindelwald will be played by Mads Mikkelsen.

It’s also worth noting that Eddie Redmayne has similarly faced criticism for playing a trans woman in The Danish Girl. However, he has since apologised for this and condemned Rowling’s comments in a lengthy statement provided to Variety last year.

Let us see a trailer or two

We’ve been treated to a teaser trailer and two official trailers for The Secrets of Dumbledore and they’ve each offered a little glimpse into what we can expect from the film.

The Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore teaser trailer took a strange approach. It blended scenes from the Harry Potter movies with real-life footage of Potterheads cheering on the actors, dressed up as their favourite characters and buying themselves a wand from Ollivander’s at (probably) Universal Studios. There was also a cameo from a Lego man.

It basically spends 1 minute and 40 seconds being a hype vid for the Harry Potter fandom. Trying almost too desperately to remind fans the franchise exists.

The remaining 40 seconds, however, gives us a little bit of context.

“New adventures are on the horizon,” it begins.

The first Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore trailer, however, fills in a bunch of gaps (but not too many):

Great, Grindelwald looks like he’s still solemnly up to no good. At least the Room of Requirement got a shout out.

As for the latest trailer for Fantastic Beasts 3, well you can find that here:

The Secrets of Dumbledore – is it any good?

Now that Secrets of Dumbledore is hitting cinema screens around the world we’re getting word on how the threequel is shaping up.

The film currently has a critics consensus of 60% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 59 reviews) which is pretty average but still a lot better than the 36% Crimes of Grindelwald got.

A lot of critics seem to agree with this score, saying Secrets of Dumbledore is an improvement on its predecessor but sometimes lacks narrative sense and substance.

It sounds like this could be a much-needed course correction for the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

When is Fantastic Beasts 3’s Australian release date?

fantastic beasts 3 grindelwald
Warner Bros Pictures

In a shocking announcement in September 2021, Warner Bros revealed that Fantastic Beasts 3 has been brought forward to April, instead of the July release date we had all marked in our calendars.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore hits theatres on April 7, 2022. 

We’ve updated this article since it was first published and we’ll continue to make updates as we learn more, so stay tuned!


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments