Brow Beat

The New Trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Will Reignite Harry Potter Nostalgia

A new trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the first installment of a new cinematic trilogy penned by J.K. Rowling, arrived on Wednesday morning, debuting on Ellen.* The trailer shows off the film’s promise and nostalgic appeal to Harry Potter fans from the moment Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander, a hero who shares a lot in common with Potter, emerges out of a tiny suitcase before the Magical Congress of the United States of America.

Inspired by Rowling’s 2001 novel of the same name, Fantastic Beasts is set in the 1920s and centers on Scamander, a magizoologist who lets his magical beasts loose and is subsequently forced to hunt them down. With Harry Potter director David Yates helming the new film—set in the Potter universe and fashioned as an origin story about the Fantastic Beasts textbook Harry picks up in The Sorcerer’s Stone—it appears to be hitting comfortingly familiar beats in music and action. And there’s some knowing humor. When his American love interest Porpentina (Katherine Waterston) repeatedly yells out “The Nomad!,” Scamander speaks for all fans in correcting her: “Sorry, we call them muggles.”

Fantastic Beasts is due in theaters Nov. 18.

Elsewhere in Slate, Laura Miller explores how Pottermania changed fandom and the future of creativity.

Correction, Sept. 28, 2016: Due to an editing error, this post originally misstated that the new trailer was the first full trailer. Other trailers of similar lengths have been previously released.