'Fantastic Beasts' 2 Trailer: Dumbledore "Never Recovered" From Grindelwald

Not unlike how Marvel fans saw a young Charles Xavier in the most recent X-Men films, Harry Potter fans will be introduced to a dashing young Albus Dumbledore (played by Jude Law) in the sequel to the spin-off prequel saga, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. In a new featurette, J.K. Rowling, the architect of this Wizarding World universe, explains the complicated relationship Dumbledore shares with the film’s antagonist, Grindelwald.

On Monday, Warner Bros. uploaded a new featurette titled “Distinctly Dumbledore,” which explores Jude Law’s new interpretation of Dumbledore as a popular professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The role was previously played by Richard Harris and Michael Gambon in the original Harry Potter film series, where an older Dumbledore ran Hogwarts as its benevolent headmaster.

“In this movie, he’s slightly mysterious and we see him through the eyes of Newt Scamander,” J.K. Rowling says in the short video. “Very few people, if any, ever call Dumbledore on his Dumbledore-ishness. In other words, his withholding of information.”

Rowling, who is a co-producer on the film and wrote the screenplay, adds that Dumbledore has a “dark past” entangled with the villainous wizard Grindelwald (Johnny Depp).

“He flirted with Grindelwald’s ideology,” she explains. “The relationship between Grindelwald and Dumbledore is key to making Dumbledore, Dumbledore. The teenager received a wound from which Dumbledore never recovered.”

The video also hints that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had an intimate relationship. When an off-screen character says the two wizards were as close as brothers, Dumbledore casually replies, “We were closer than brothers.”

Rowling herself has confirmed that Dumbledore is gay, and in 2016 said the Fantastic Beasts series will do more to illustrate Dumbledore’s sexuality than the original series. So, it makes sense that Grindelwald’s turn to the “dark side” of magic would hurt Dumbledore in fundamentally profound ways.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald hits theaters on November 16.