The Fantastic Beasts series has been a huge box office success, with the first 2016 installment in the franchise, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” becoming the eighth-highest-grossing film of the year. The movie stars Eddie Redmayne as the wizard Newt Scamander, whom Harry Potter fans will know wrote the oft-cited Care of Magical Creatures textbook “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”
The movie franchise is based on the 2001 book of the same name by J.K. Rowling, which helps explain the iconic magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe. The movies add quite a bit more context, though, recounting the events of the global wizarding war and Dumbledore’s history with Grindelwald. Two sequels have been made since the first Fantastic Beasts movie came out, and more are confirmed to be on the way.
If you’re wondering how the Fantastic Beasts movies will play out, scroll through the slideshow to see all the movies in order.
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"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"
The series kicked off with the release of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” in 2016. The film is set in New York City in 1926 – 65 years before the events of the Harry Potter series. It follows a British wizard and magizoologist named Newt who researches and rescues magical creatures and stores them in his suitcase.
After he accidentally swaps suitcases with a nonmagical person (“No-Maj” or “Muggle”) named Jacob Kowalski, several creatures are let loose in the city, threatening to expose the Wizarding World to No-Majs who are determined to eradicate them. Newt goes on a wild adventure to recapture all the creatures before the wizarding community is exposed.
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"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” arrived in 2018. The film takes place a year following the first film’s events and centres around a dark wizard named Gellert Grindelwald who escapes prison. He is set on creating a world where witches and wizards rule over muggles. Albus Dumbledore, a professor at Hogwarts who was once Grindelwald’s lover, teams up with Newt, his former student, in order to take him down.
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"Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore"
“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” takes place several years after the second film when Grindelwald is now more powerful than ever. He’s gathered an army of followers who believe in his cause for wizards to dominate the world. Since we learn at the end of “The Crimes of Grindelwald” that Dumbledore is unable to fight his former friend due to a blood pact the two made when they were younger, Dumbledore entrusts Newt and his friends to thwart Grindelwald’s plans once and for all.
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"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 4"
“Fantastic Beasts 4” is confirmed, but beyond continuing to follow the adventures of Newt, exact details surrounding its plot have yet to be revealed.
While speaking at a Warner Bros. fan event in Japan, the franchise’s producer, David Heyman, revealed the film is still in its early stages. When asked if the Fantastic Beasts movies would ever take place in Japan, Heyman said, “We haven’t yet started writing the next film, so we’ll have to see. If I have my way, we’ll definitely be going to Japan,” according to The Rowling Library.
Considering the script hasn’t even been written yet, it’s likely the movie won’t premiere for another couple years at least.
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"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 5"
Both the release date and title for “Fantastic Beasts 5” remain a mystery. In a November 2016 interview with Variety, Rowling teased the franchise would span across 19 years in the wizarding world, meaning the fifth film would take place in 1945. Diehard Harry Potter fans know that’s the same year Dumbledore and Grindelwald have their infamous duel after their blood pact is destroyed. Their fight ends the global wizarding war and results in Dumbledore becoming the new owner of the Elder Wand, as well as the new Hogwarts headmaster. With this in mind, we can assume the franchise will end with Dumbledore becoming the respected leader we eventually know him to be in the Harry Potter books and movies.
