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'Harry Potter' spin-off film gets a release date, Universal ride details revealed

A release date for the 'Harry Potter' spin-off film, 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,' has been announced and new details have been revealed about the upcoming roller coaster that will debut at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park. 

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Kevin Kolczynski/NBCUniversal/AP
NBCUniversal Orlando has created a computer rendering of the version of Gringotts Bank that will be the setting for 'Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts.'
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

“Harry Potter” fans recently got more details on the upcoming projects set in the world created by J.K. Rowling.

Warner Bros., the studio behind the upcoming “Potter” spin-off series “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” recently announced that the first film in the planned trilogy will be released on Nov. 18, 2016.

The script for the movie is being written by Rowling and is based on the book of the same name by the author. “Fantastic” is a short book that bills itself as a textbook assigned to students at the magic school Hogwarts and was written by a man named Newt Scamander. “Fantastic” will focus on the life of Newt and will reportedly be set 70 years before Harry Potter appeared on the scene, according to The New York Times.

In addition, new descriptions of the ride that will debut in the new section of the “Harry Potter” park at Universal Studios Orlando in Florida have been released. The ride will reside in the new section of the park that’s built to resemble Diagon Alley, the wizarding shopping center located in London in the “Potter” books, and that area of the park will open this summer, according to Universal.

The roller coaster that will be found in the new Diagon Alley section is reportedly titled “Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts” and is based on a section of the final book in the “Potter” series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” in which characters Harry, Ron, and Hermione must get out of the wizarding bank (and in the book, they do so by flying out on a dragon).

The ride reportedly adds a few more perils. First, according to Entertainment Weekly, riders will see Bill Weasley, older brother of Harry Potter’s friend Ron, who says hello and inquires if anyone is looking to open a Gringotts account. Then Harry, Ron, and Hermione bust into the bank, looking for a Horcrux as they are in the books, and riders get onto the roller coaster, putting on 3-D glasses. Riders then brave a waterfall, trolls, dragons, and the villain Voldemort and his henchwoman Bellatrix Lestrange.

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