Moviegoers may have to wait longer than expected for Fantastic Beasts 3, but those who are hungry for Harry Potter content are in luck. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is available digitally and it's packed with 14 minutes of deleted scenes. One of these scenes includes an extended conversation between Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) in which the latter dishes on some important history between himself and Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp).
Newt: So why did you send me to New York?Dumbledore: Because I knew Grindelwald would try to catch Credence. He had a vision, you see, many years ago, in which an Obscurial killed the man he fears above all others.Newt: You.Dumbledore: I thought you might deprive Grindelwald of his weapon, not by killing Credence but by saving him.
As Harry Potter fans are well aware, Dumbledore and Grindelwald have quite a bit of history. The two of them were close friends as young men who both shared the desire to become unbeatable wizards. Things eventually went sour between the two because Grindelwald is a lunatic and Dumbledore mostly isn't. Their falling out led to a three-way duel between the two men and Dumbledore's brother, which sadly ended in the death of Dumbledore's sister.
The full details of their relationship and what went wrong have never been fully disclosed, but it won't likely stay that way for long as Fantastic Beasts gets closer to its conclusion. Case in point, a deleted scene from The Crimes of Grindelwald finds Dumbledore opening up a bit about about his history with Grindelwald and providing some exposition.
Unfortunately, we can't show off a clip, but Hypable has a description of the scene in question. The deleted scene is from early in the film during Newt and Dumbledore's first conversation in London. Dumbledore is explaining why he sent Newt to New York City during the first movie and it was all about Credence (Ezra Miller). As it turns out, Dumbledore knew that Grindelwald would still be looking for Credence because the dark wizard had a vision that an Obscurial would kill the man he fears most.
Dumbledore had hoped that Newt would be able to save Credence, thus preventing Grindelwald's vision. In classic Dumbledore fashion, he didn't explain any of this to Newt beforehand, but better late than never, I guess.
The conflict between Dumbledore and Grindelwald will likely take center stage sooner rather than later. The two of them them have a war-ending duel coming up and the films are likely building to that moment. Hopefully by that point, the history between the two men will finally be revealed in full.
Fantastic Beasts 3 is currently scheduled to arrive in theaters on November 20, 2020 (but that will probably be moved since production was pushed back on the "gigantic" film). Until then, stay up to date on all the movies heading to theaters this year with our 2019 movie guide.
