‘Harry Potter’ expands with a ‘Fantastic Beasts’ featurette, and wizarding schools

In a new featurette for “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” Eddie Redmayne exclaims that the film is “imagination taken to the extreme.” J.K. Rowling further stirs that pot with a reveal of heretofore unknown international wizarding schools.

The new video for “Fantastic Beasts” introduces us to Redmayne’s Newt Scamander and a trio of characters that will be at the heart of the “Harry Potter”-adjacent film set to premiere in November 2016. Jacob Kowalski, played by Dan Fogler, and sisters Porpentina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) and Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol) make up the quartet that will be thrust into a world of magic.

Set in New York in 1926, it seems that some magical beasts -- we don’t know how many or what kind -- somehow escape from Scamander. We rarely got to see magical creatures set in the non-magical world during the “Harry Potter” series -- though, the dementor scene in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” was great. It may be an odd sort of tale if humans can’t see the beasts that may or may not be attacking them.

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Fogler states that fans will “feel the nostalgia and the love that they have for the movies in a whole new light.” We haven’t seen the creatures illuminated by that new light yet through the trailers or this featurette, but maybe it’s because we’re (mostly) muggles.

Besides not being able to see many magical beasts, muggles also can’t enroll in magic school -- probably. Which is a shame because Rowling recently also released the fact that there are 11 “long-established prestigious wizarding schools” in the world. We know about Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, thanks to the TriWizard’s tournament, but there’s also Brazil’s Castelobruxo, Japan’s Mahoutokoro, Uganda’s Uagadou, North America’s Ilvermorny and others.

Luna Lovegood actress Evanna Lynch told a crowd assembled at the Celebration of Harry Potter at the Universal Orlando Resort on Friday about the reveal, including some of the different schools’ specialties and peculiarities (Herbology in Castelobruxo, magical robes in Mahoutokoro).

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