Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), directed by David Yates, follows the British magizoologist Newt Scamander, who arrives in New York in 1926 with a case full of magical creatures. A baker named Jacob Kowalski, who has no magic, ends up holding a case identical to Newt's, and the two cases get swapped. Jacob opens Newt's case at home and some of the creatures escape into the city.

Tina Goldstein, a demoted magical investigator, first arrests Newt and then joins him, together with her sister Queenie, in trying to recover the animals. The film is the first of the three spin-offs that sit beside the eight main films on the Harry Potter movies hub. The story is set about 70 years before the events of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

If you want to know how the films differ from the books, Harry Potter books vs movies is the better starting point.

The full story runs from Newt's arrival in Manhattan to a memory wiping rain over the city, and everything below gives away the ending. Newt reaches New York in 1926, while a preacher named Mary Lou Barebone speaks out against witches and wizards. A chase after an escaped Niffler leads to his case being swapped with that of Jacob Kowalski. Tina Goldstein arrests Newt, then lets him go when she sees the case belongs to Jacob. Jacob opens the case at home, several creatures get out, and one bites him.

Newt, Tina, Jacob and Queenie, who can read minds, set out to recapture the animals. Along the way they learn the case also holds an Obscurus, a dangerous force that grows in magical children who hide their powers. The group is arrested by the American wizarding authorities, who blame Newt's creatures for the damage and for the death of a senator. Percival Graves, a senior security official, accuses Newt of working with the dark wizard Grindelwald and sentences him and Tina to death. Queenie helps them escape, and they get the case back.

Graves, it turns out, has been using Credence, Mary Lou's adopted son, to find the child who carries the Obscurus. Credence is the host himself, and he lashes out and tears through the city. Newt and Tina try to calm him in a subway tunnel, but Graves interferes and the wizarding Aurors destroy the Obscurus. Newt then exposes Graves as Grindelwald in disguise, and Grindelwald is arrested. Newt's Thunderbird spreads a rain that wipes the memories of the city's people without magic, and the damage is repaired.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them premiered on November 10, 2016, at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, New York, a fitting choice for a story set in Manhattan. NY1 covered the Lincoln Center event.

The general release followed eight days later. In the US the film opened on November 18, 2016, according to The Numbers. The UK release was the same day, and Australia opened a day earlier, on November 17, according to TMDB. The film is rated PG-13 in the US, 12A in the UK and M in Australia.

The opening weekend was $74 million across 4,144 theaters, according to The Numbers, and the running time is 133 minutes. For where the film sits among the others, Harry Potter movies in order explains the release and chronological routes.

The ending resolves the New York crisis and plants the conflict that the two sequels pick up. After Grindelwald is captured, Newt's Thunderbird releases a rain over New York that erases the memories of ordinary people, and the wizarding authorities repair the damage and hide all signs of what happened.

Why does the memory rain matter? It is a cover up on a city scale, and it echoes the main saga, where the Ministry of Magic spends Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix denying that Voldemort has returned. In both stories the wizarding authorities protect secrecy before they protect the truth, and in my opinion this is the clearest thematic link between the two series.

What does the Occamy eggshell scene mean? Newt leaves Jacob some eggshells from a creature called an Occamy, which Jacob sells to open a bakery. When Queenie visits the shop, her presence brings back his memory of her, and he smiles. It could be argued that this is the warmest beat in the film, because it shows the memory spell has a gap, and it gives the story a quiet payoff that does not depend on a spectacle. Jacob is also the only No-Maj to walk away with something, which sets him apart from the Muggle characters of the main saga, who are mostly kept in the dark.

What does the exposure of Grindelwald set up? Graves turns out to be the dark wizard in disguise, and his arrest puts the villain in custody at the close of this film. That makes the film feel closed, yet Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald opens with Grindelwald escaping custody in 1927, as he is moved from America to Europe for trial. Credence is thought to be in Paris in that sequel, which suggests the Obscurus destruction in the subway tunnel did not end his story, and the later credit of Credence Barebone / Aurelius Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore confirms it.

Compare this with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, where the opening film leaves the villain's story unfinished. Here the villain is caught, and the open thread is a boy. Perhaps that is the film's boldest choice: it ends on a happy note for Newt and Jacob while leaving its two biggest threats open.

The story is set in New York City in 1926, from Newt's arrival with his case to the subway tunnel where Credence's Obscurus is finally stopped. The Barebone preaching, the baker's home where the creatures escape and the tunnel showdown all play out within that single city, which gives the film a tighter geography than the Harry Potter films set around Hogwarts. No shooting location list has been published by Warner Bros. for the film.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has six notable trivia points, from J.K. Rowling's first screenplay to a costume design Oscar.

• J.K. Rowling wrote the screenplay, her first.
• Warner Bros. announced Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander on June 1, 2015.
• David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter films, directed this film.
• The story is set about 70 years before the first Harry Potter film.
• The Numbers lists a production budget of $180 million and an opening weekend of $74 million across 4,144 theaters.
• Colleen Atwood won the Oscar for Best Costume Design for the film at the 89th Academy Awards.

For a ranking of this film against the rest, see Harry Potter movies ranked.