Warner Brothers Pictures has released the first trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the spinoff prequel to their juggernaut Harry Potter movie franchise.

The new movie is set 70 years before the events of Harry Potter, and follows a magizoologist (someone who studies and catalogs the various magical creatures of the wizarding world) named Newt Scamander (played by Academy Award winner and likely upcoming Academy Award nominee Eddie Redmayne) who visits New York with a briefcase full of magical creatures, some of which end up escaping. Scamander is the author of the textbook of the same name, which would one day be studied by the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, including none other than Harry Potter himself.

You can check out the first trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them below.

Joining Redmayne on the cast is Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Colin Farrell, Faith Wood-Blagrove, Jenn Murray, Elizabeth Moynihan, Christine Marzano, Denis Khoroshko, Jon Voight, Gemma Chan, Carmen Ejogo, and Ron Perlman.

The movie is directed by David Yates, who also directed the last four installments of the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2. The screenplay was written by the person most familiar with the Harry Potter universe, J.K. Rowling, who of course is the author behind the books that these movies are based on. Rowling makes her screenwriting debut here.

The film is produced by David Heyman, Lionel Wigram, and also Steve Kloves, who’s known for working on the screenplays of seven of the eight original Harry Potter movies.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is currently scheduled to be released on the 18th of November in 2016.

Trailer

[Source: Warner Bros. Pictures]