The 'Fantastic Beasts' Trailer Is Dying to Be a 'Harry Potter' Prequel

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As the kids who grew up practicing lightsaber routines anxiously await the release of this weekend’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the wand-and-broomstick aficionados among us also have something pretty fantastic(al) to look forward to.

Today, Warner Bros. released the first trailer for J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. Set in 1920s America, the film stars distant-Weasley-cousin Eddie Redmayne as magiczoologist Newt Scamander, who apparently loses a few of the aforementioned fantastic beasts while on a trip to New York. The mishap could, according to the official synopsis, "spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj (aka muggle) worlds." Spell? Is that wizard humor?

The trailer looks like it has plenty of stuff to appease Harry Potter fans, from hushed incantations whispered in moonlight to wizarding world intrigue (plus a riff on the original movies' whimisical theme -- really, this movie is dying to slip Harry Potter into the title). The major difference: American accents. Welcome to New Yawk, Newt. It's been waiting for you.

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Anna Silman is a staff writer at Thrillist and an alum of Salon and Vulture. She's still waiting for her letter from Hogwarts. Find her on Twitter @annaesilman.