Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is about a manhunt for a young man named Credence Barebone, set in 1927 while the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald tries to build an army. The story starts when Grindelwald escapes from custody as he is being moved from America to Europe for trial.

The escape lands on Newt Scamander in London, where the British magizoologist is trying to get a travel ban lifted. The Ministry of Magic offers him a deal: help track down Credence, who is thought to be in Paris, and the restriction can go away. Newt turns the Ministry down. Albus Dumbledore then asks him to find Credence as well.

Elsewhere, Newt learns that Queenie Goldstein has used a spell on Jacob Kowalski, the No-Maj baker from the first film. Queenie heads to Paris to find her sister Tina, with Newt and Jacob following close behind. The result is a chase through 1920s Paris in which every character wants something slightly different from the same missing person. If you have not seen the opening chapter, start with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, then come back here.

The full plot of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a search for Credence's true family that ends at a Grindelwald rally and leaves the wizarding world divided. Spoilers follow.

Grindelwald breaks free during the prisoner transfer and starts gathering followers in Europe. The Ministry and Dumbledore both push Newt to find Credence, who is believed to be the long-lost half-brother of Leta Lestrange. In Paris, Credence escapes from a circus with Nagini and searches for his real family. Grimmson, who turns out to be a secret follower of Grindelwald, kills a woman who knew Credence's past before she can name who sent her.

Yusuf Kama has sworn an Unbreakable Vow to kill the Lestrange heir, and he captures Tina, Newt and Jacob. Grindelwald, meanwhile, wins Queenie over to his side. Old family secrets come out, including the fact that Leta swapped her baby brother with Credence on a ship that later sank.

Grindelwald then holds a rally and shows his audience a vision of a future war. He traps the Aurors in a ring of blue fire that only his loyal followers can cross. Queenie and Credence both cross it, and Leta gives her life so that others can escape. Newt joins the fight against Grindelwald. Afterward he gives Dumbledore a vial holding the blood pact that stops Dumbledore and Grindelwald from fighting each other, and Credence is left wondering who he really is.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald premiered in Paris on November 8, 2018, at UGC Ciné Cité Bercy, and reached US and UK theaters on November 16, 2018. Australia received it a day earlier, on November 15, 2018, according to Box Office Mojo.

Much of the story is set in Paris, and Eddie Redmayne and Jude Law were among the stars on the red carpet, according to Associated Press coverage.

The film ran 134 minutes and carries a PG-13 rating in the US, 12A in the UK and M in Australia. Its budget was $200 million, and it earned about $656 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, made up of roughly $160 million domestic and $496 million international. For the wider picture see the Harry Potter box office page.

In chronological order this is the second of eleven films, ahead of every title in the main saga. The Harry Potter movies in order guide shows where it fits in both the release order and the chronological order, and the Harry Potter timeline places the events of 1927 against the rest of the story.

The ending of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald leaves Grindelwald stronger, Leta dead and Credence's loyalty undecided, and the final scenes are built to hand all of that to the next film. Spoilers follow.

After the rally, Grindelwald's forces have grown. Newt gives Dumbledore the vial containing the blood pact that keeps the two wizards from dueling, and Dumbledore believes the pact can be destroyed. That matters later, because The Secrets of Dumbledore describes the pact as the reason Dumbledore cannot fight Grindelwald directly and quietly assembles a team led by Newt instead.

The last scene is at Nurmengard. Grindelwald gives Credence a wand and a phoenix and hints that Credence's real name is Aurelius Dumbledore. The Secrets of Dumbledore credits Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone / Aurelius Dumbledore, so the hint is not a throwaway line. It turns the search for Credence's family into a question about Dumbledore's own.

In my opinion, the ending works better as a bridge than as a conclusion. Almost nothing is resolved: the pact still stands, Credence has not chosen a side and the war Grindelwald promised at his rally has not started. It could be argued that viewers who wanted a self-contained story were given a middle chapter. That being said, the choice to end on a family revelation rather than a battle is consistent with a film that spends most of its length on secrets and parentage. If you want to see how the thread pays off, continue to Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was filmed mostly on sets at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in England, with additional photography in Wiltshire and scanning work in Paris and Switzerland. The production announced its wrap on December 20, 2017.

Leavesden held the sets for 1920s Paris, Newt's London home and animal sanctuary, the French Ministry of Magic and the amphitheater used for the Grindelwald rally. Paris itself was visited mainly for research and background plate photography, and the built streets were given sooty deposits to reflect the pollution from coal fires in the 1920s.

Lacock, Wiltshire, supplied the Hogwarts exterior grounds and village scenes. Hogwarts appears on screen, and the Great Hall was rebuilt digitally from scans taken at the Warner Bros. studio tour, as was the Ministry of Magic environment. In Switzerland, helicopter photography was scanned to produce a digital Alpine valley and castle. Visual effects teams blended the practical sets and the scanned places, which is why the film mixes a very physical Paris with a very digital Hogwarts.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald has a production story that is mostly about scanning real places and rebuilding them on a studio lot.

• Most of the film's 1920s Paris was built on sets at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden rather than shot in the city.
• Clear Angle Studios spent a month in Paris scanning buildings and textures, and Framestore used the material to build a digital square for the magical circus.
• Clear Angle shot 10,000 to 20,000 photos in a two day helicopter shoot in Switzerland, and the scans became about 12 km of digital valley.
• The film had about 2,500 visual effects shots, and Double Negative made 4,000 extras from filmed footage sprites instead of computer generated crowds.
• The Hogwarts Great Hall and the Ministry of Magic environment were rebuilt digitally using scans taken at the Warner Bros. studio tour.