Moviegoers are spoiled these days. Thanks to the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, people have become accustomed to staying in the theater long after the lights come up, refusing to move until the screen finally goes blank after all the credits have rolled in hopes of seeing more scenes. Fans now expect something extra after the credits when they attend any big blockbuster film, not just Marvel movies, and the new wizarding adventure Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is no exception. But is there a Fantastic Beasts post-credits scene?
You can let theater ushers do their job on time after watching Fantastic Beasts, because the movie does not feature any post-credits scenes. Once the movie ends, it's over, so you won't have to sit through the end of the credits and discover the names of the drivers for Mr. Redmayne and Ms. Kravitz. On the one hand, it's good that fans won't have to stare at five minutes of scrolling names at the end of the movie, but on the other hand it kind of stinks that no glimpse will be offered of the next installment of this new franchise, because it sounds like things could get very interesting for Harry Potter fans.
Fantastic Beasts is the first movie in what will be a five film franchise, and it really only scratches the surface of the story. While its focus is largely on Newt Scamander and the chaos that unfolds when his case of magical creatures are let loose upon 1920s New York, much of the rest of the franchise will revolve around a young Albus Dumbledore and his confrontation with the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald. The latter has a brief cameo in Fantastic Beasts (Spoiler alert — played by Johnny Depp), and casting for the former is underway; with a scheduled debut in the next film in the series.
Grindelwald's attempt to take over the world, and Dumbledore's success in thwarting him, is something that is discussed in the Harry Potter books, but was never fully explored until now. J.K. Rowling is writing the screenplays for the films, cutting out the middle man of writing novels first, and she is letting fans know that they can expect lots of connections to Harry Potter. "You're learning about a part of magical history that's talked about in the Potter books but you never see," she said in a promotional video. "This is new material, (but) there are ways in which we connect to the Potter books that I think people will find surprising. We're talking about the first time a wizard rose and threatened the world order. This is always where I was interested in going."
Knowing that the franchise is going to intertwine more with the backstory of Harry Potter will likely leave fans a little sad that there's no sneak peek at a sequel found after the credits of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, meaning they'll just have to wait until the franchise's next installment hits theaters in 2018.
Images: Warner Bros. Pictures; Giphy
