“Fantastic Beasts 2” is part love story, which means we’re hoping for a whole lot of Leta Lestrange
The first (and magical) Fantastic Beasts treated us to a handful of fun nods to the Harry Potter universe we all know and love. But as we’re finding out deets about the movie’s upcoming sequel — Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald — it’s looking more and more like we’ll be diving wand-first into a full-blown origin story, complete with mysterious love triangles and — thankfully — way more Zoe Kravitz.
Kravitz, if you remember, showed up for a hot second in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Mind-reader Queenie (Alison Sudol) got all up in Newt’s (Eddie Redmayne) head and wanted to know more about the woman whose photo he’d been carrying, Leta Lestrange. At the time, we didn’t get a lot of info on Leta, just that Newt seemed to have some complicated history with her and that their relationship had been strained. (Queenie used her magic abilities to assure Newt that he was better off; Leta, she said, was “a taker.” Newt needs “a giver.”)
With the last name Lestrange, we could put together a few more theories. Leta, who never appeared in the existing Potter canon, is somehow related to straight-up-evil-in-witch-form Bellatrix Lestrange. Not that good wizards and witches haven’t come from, or been connected to, dark families before but…the Lestrange clan is known for being bad to the bone.
Last week, Warner Bros. revealed new film intel, including photos from and the title of the sequel, and we have so many more Leta Lestrange-related questions. The cast photo shows Kravitz cuddled up next to Callum Turner, who will play Newt’s older brother Theseus. And we’re told Leta is actually Theseus’ fiancé.
In one year, return to the Wizarding World with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. #MagicInProgress #FantasticBeasts pic.twitter.com/8aWj8xhGj5
— Fantastic Beasts (@FantasticBeasts) November 16, 2017
Plus, executive producer David Heyman told Entertainment Weekly that Fantastic Beasts 2 (there are five planned in total) would partly focus on “love and passion,” and now we’re wondering whose love and passion we should start shipping:
"We delve deeper into Jo [Rowling's] wizarding world — we’re in Paris, we’re in London and New York — the world is expanding. As you can tell from the image, we’re following quite a few characters. The new film has a very different feel than the first. "It’s got a thriller quality. And it’s also a story about love and passion and all its forms — paternal, romantic, political. And it’s just a thrilling and very fun adventure. We took all we’ve learned from one and just expanded that and created a richer, deeper, and more thrilling film which I’m excited to be a part of."
So yeah, these new details have us very curious about what went on between Newt and Leta.
Especially considering the way director David Yates described her character at a CinemaBlend panel earlier this year: “She’s quite complicated and damaged and confused and Newt is absolutely still in love with her, so she has a kind of power over him, and she, yeah, she’s a kind of tragic figure, so we will see a bit more of her in the second movie.”
We know we’ll be getting at least one other backstory on an amicable relationship gone bad —
that of young Dumbledore (Jude Law) and Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) — so throwing another in there seems right. Honestly, as long as we get more Zoe Kravitz screen time, we’ll be into it.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald hits theaters in November 2018.