Entertainment Weekly has conjured up a series of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them character posters designed to divide friend from foe.
There are nine one-sheets in total, with each one placing the likes of Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell and Eddie Redmayne in a decidedly magical rendition of New York City of the 1920s. It’s the latter actor that will anchor David Yates’ budding franchise-starter as Newt Scamander, a former past pupil of Hogwarts who was expelled for “endangering human life with a beast.” A proud Hufflepuff and trailblazing pioneer in the field of magizoology, Newt then begins a daring excursion across the globe in search of those Fantastic Beasts, circling back to the Big Apple with a briefcase crammed full of magical critters.
It’s here that Yates’ spinoff kicks into gear, unleashing a handful of wonderful beasts upon the unsuspecting masses of New York – a blunder that threatens to expose the wizards and witches of NYC to a wiz-phobic community that doesn’t exactly hold wand-bearers in the highest regard, to put it kindly.
Rubbing shoulders with Waterston, Farrell and Redmayne on the posters above are Samantha Morton, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Gemma Chan, Carmen Ejogo, and Ron Perlman as goblin gangster Gnarlak.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is locked in for release on November 18, 2016. Much like the Hobbit trilogy before it, Warner Bros. has plans in place for a trio of fantasy movies based on J.K. Rowling’s prequel novel, with the second of three due to land in November of 2018. Though that may be read as an easy means to cash-in on the Potter brand, the fact that Rowling and other Potter personnel are on board behind the scenes lends Beasts the benefit of the doubt…for now.