Fantastic Beasts 3 finally has a title; the ill-fated Harry Potter spin-off is going to be called The Secrets of Dumbledore. When the news broke, it was met with what can only be described as a collective ‘meh’ from critics online who’ve found themselves frustrated with the aimlessness of the Fantastic Beasts series.
Still, while most were aggressively ambivalent about the news, others were curious about what secrets Dumbledore (Jude Law) may be hiding. Could they involve his previously unknown brother Credence Barebone, aka Aurelius Dumbledore (Ezra Miller), or maybe the Hogwarts professor has discovered a way of defeating Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelson)?
Well, a lot of fans think they know exactly what the titular secret is. Their tongue in cheek suggestion is that the film will explain how Dumbledore goes from looking like Jude Law cosplaying James Bond to Michael Gambon after falling through a fancy dress shop window in just 11 years. You see, Crimes of Grindelwald, which introduced Law as Dumbledore, was set in 1927, but there’s a flashback in Half-Blood Prince set in 1938 where Gambon is playing Dumbledore. So what happened?
Check out the best reactions to the title reveal here:
if you'd told me 10 years ago about anything called "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" back then I would have assumed it was just bad fanfiction
— Houston Coley (@blockbustedpod) September 22, 2021
Okay but the secrets of which Dumbledore… Albus or Aurelius? Ariana? #TheSecretsOfDumbledore pic.twitter.com/DFbpFxRk8f
— Cherry Wallis (@CherryWallis) September 22, 2021
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore's Drastic Wardrobe Change pic.twitter.com/SnrdZZVQnf
— Neel Bhatt (@_Neelsreeldeel) September 23, 2021
So what are the #SecretsOfDumbledore? pic.twitter.com/rhhyyNySCf
— Jed Wagman (@JedWagman) September 22, 2021
The obvious answer is, to borrow a phrase from the TV series Mystery Science Theatres, it’s a movie; don’t worry about it, but this is Harry Potter, and it’s exactly the type of thing fans do worry about. Maybe battling his former flame takes a lot out of Dumbledore? Perhaps he was just experimenting with magical cosmetic surgery for a few years? We just don’t know, but we hope the film gives us an answer.
Directed by franchise mainstay David Yates, The Secrets of Dumbledore will pick up the story of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) several years after the events of Crimes of Grindelwald. Set in both Rio de Janerio and Berlin, the fantasy movie’s expected to show the Wizarding World’s involvement in World War II.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will appear in theatres on April 15, 2022.