“Harry Potter” fans will be welcomed back to the wizarding world next week with cute and mischievous magical creatures causing havoc in New York City in “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” but there’s deeper, darker unrest in the magical world.

    “Fantastic Beasts,” opening in world theaters on November 18, is the first of five new films from “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, penned exclusively for the big screen and preceding the Potter stories by around seven decades.

    Set in 1926, the new film centers on Oscar-winning Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander, an introverted “magizoologist” who arrives in Manhattan with a case full of magical creatures that quickly escape.

    Oscar-winning British actor Redmayne, 34, said he and Rowling had a “riveting” discussion on the quirks and mannerisms that would define Scamander.

    “Getting the opportunity to talk to an author about where their characters come from is so unique. And for her Newt comes from a really personal place, actually,” Redmayne told Reuters. “It was really lovely to hear about his genius in her imagination,” he added.

    Warner Bros’ “Fantastic Beasts” begins with newspaper headlines documenting the growing power of a dark wizard named Gellert Grindelwald and fear and unrest among the magical community. It echoes the rise of the dark wizard Voldemort in Rowling’s Potter stories.

    Scamander’s escaped creatures threaten to expose the wizarding world, which lives discreetly among oblivious non-magic humans. Meanwhile, Manhattan homes are being demolished by an unseen creature, causing non-magic humans to speculate and fear that witches live among them.

    Scamander becomes a suspect for the magical ministry, but he is helped by ministry agent Tina Goldstein, her mind-reading sister Queenie and a non-magical baker named Jacob Kowalski to recapture his creatures.

    Scamander’s story is woven into the growing influence of Grindelwald, who believes that the wizarding world should rule over non-magical humans.

    Redmayne has revealed the pressure and nerves he feels about his role in the film. He said that because he enjoyed the Daniel Radcliffe movies so much, he felt a whole new kind of pressure for this role:

    “Of course you feel pressure. Also, particularly because I loved the ‘Potter’ films. There was something so warming about being able to dive back into that world every year or two. And if you’ve enjoyed something, you don’t want to be the one who comes in and screws it up,” he told The Guardian.

    (SD-Agencies)