The first footage for the follow up to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has been launched online

The first full-length trailer for the sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has been released. Subtitled The Crimes of Grindelwald, it sees Eddie Redmayne return in the role of “magizoologist” Newt Scamander in the second of the projected five films in the JK Rowling-scripted Harry Potter spinoff series.

Directed by Potter veteran David Yates, Fantastic Beasts 2 sees Scamander and Albus Dumbledore (played by Jude Law) take on powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp). Katherine Waterston also returns from Fantastic Beasts, as Tina Goldstein, the rehabilitated auror who also joins the fight against Grindelwald.

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While Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them proved a substantial hit, grossing more than $800m after its release in November 2016, the sequel has had a rocky time. Rowling was forced to defend the casting of Depp, saying she was “genuinely happy” to have Depp in the film after controversy over the circumstances of his divorce from Amber Heard. More recently, Rowling was accused of responsibility-shirking after Yates revealed that Dumbledore’s supposed gay sexuality was not being referred to in Fantastic Beasts 2, despite the fact that the whole film is about the wizard he was supposedly in love with as a young man.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is due for release on 15 November in Australia, and 16 November in the UK and US.