When the news came out that the second movie in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise will involve a magical circus, it seemed like a cool yet random idea. But it’s not as out of the blue as you might think, because the first film actually holds a massive clue.
Deadline’s official description for the currently untitled second film in the five-film series includes this intriguing line about new characters: “Claudia Kim as a young woman first encountered as a featured attraction at a wizarding circus….Ólafur Darri Ólafsson is Skender, who runs the wizarding circus…”
Young Dumbledore appearing in the second film makes sense. Newt’s long lost mysterious love Leta Lestrange does too, since she’s connected to the Black family in the Harry Potter universe. But a wizarding circus?
If you revisit Fantastic Beasts and Where to find Them, however, there’s a shot of Colin Farrell’s Percival Graves — who was really the Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in disguise. Next to him is a poster for “Circus Arcanus.”
It also says “bound for Europe,” which is where the second film will be set.
Since J.K Rowling penned the script, it shouldn’t be surprising that there are minor references to plot points that become relevant way down the line. Tom Riddle’s diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was a Horcrux — even though the word “horcrux” didn’t enter the series until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Sirius Black didn’t appear until Prisoner of Azkaban, but he’s mentioned right off the bat in the first book’s first scene.
Does this mean a wizarding circus will end up being a huge deal in future movies? It just might.
The currently untitled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them sequel hits theaters on November 18, 2018.
