Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Leaked on Torrents as Harry Potter Spin-Off Movie Releases in India

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore — the new Harry Potter spin-off movie, part of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World — has leaked onto torrent sites and other networks that enable piracy, in differing versions of quality and file size (from 847MB to 2.46GB). While most copies are arguably genuine, given the attached screenshots and user comments attesting to their legitimacy, some are fraudulent and merely exist as a trap to load viruses and malware onto the computers of unsuspecting individuals. But even with those genuine cases, the illegal copies of Fantastic Beasts 3 are of staggeringly poor quality, filled with advertisements, and appear weirdly cropped. Gadgets 360 does not condone illegal file-sharing. It is against the law and filmmakers deserve to be paid for the content they create.

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The first legitimate leaked version of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore showed up on multiple torrent sites around 1am IST on Friday, April 8, with the label “CAM” suggesting it was filmed with a video camera in cinemas. Fantastic Beasts 3 released Wednesday in the Netherlands, Thursday in Australia, Germany, New Zealand, and IMAX in India, and Friday in all cinemas in India, China, the UK, Ireland, Japan, and Spain. According to publicly available comments and screenshots, the illegal Fantastic Beasts 3 rips feature ads for an online gambling and betting website. These have been inserted digitally into the film. There are no hardcoded subtitles going by the screenshots, as we have seen with other big Hollywood releases that were leaked.

Thankfully for Warner Bros. and The Secrets of Dumbledore cast and crew, the quality of the cam-recorded illegal Wizarding World movie rips is downright terrible — to an extent that it’s simply unwatchable. Per publicly available screenshots, Gadgets 360 can tell that it’s hard to decipher facial expressions and cues, and virtually impossible to see anything in dimly lit shots. As always with CAM rips, there are severe issues with sharpness, detail, contrast, cropping, angle, and/ or colour. We won’t be posting any screenshots out of not wanting to spoil any part of the film. Gadgets 360 has not been able to verify audio quality, though user comments suggest that it’s echo-y, muffled, and hard to hear. The Fantastic Beasts 3 full movie leaks only reinforce the fact that you should check out the movie in theatres.

Directed by Harry Potter veteran David Yates, off a screenplay by Rowling and fellow veteran Steve Kloves, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore stars Eddie Redmayne as self-proclaimed magizoologist Newt Scamander, Jude Law as Hogwarts DADA teacher Albus Dumbledore, Ezra Miller as the disturbed and abused Credence Barebone/ Aurelius Dumbledore, Dan Fogler as Newt’s non-magical bakery owner friend Jacob Kowalski, Alison Sudol as Jacob’s telepathic love interest Queenie Goldstein, Callum Turner as Newt’s older Auror brother Theseus Scamander, Jessica Williams as Ilvermorny teacher Lally Hicks, Katherine Waterston as Newt’s Auror love interest and Queenie’s sister Tina Goldstein, and Mads Mikkelsen as dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.

The new Harry Potter spin-off movie also has roles for William Nadylam as Newt’s French-Senegalese wizard ally Yusuf Kama, Victoria Yeates as Newt’s assistant Bunty Broadacre, Poppy Corby-Tuech as Grindelwald’s right-hand follower Vinda Rosier who is capable of Occlumency, Fiona Glascott as Hogwarts teacher Minerva McGonagall, Richard Coyle as Albus’ younger brother and Hog’s Head owner Aberforth Dumbledore, Maria Fernanda Cândido as Minister of Magic for Brazil Vicência Santos, Oliver Masucci as Supreme Head of the International Confederation of Wizards and Minister of Magic for Germany Anton Vogel, and Dave Wong as Minister of Magic for China Liu Tao.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore released Friday, April 8 in India, the UK, and several other markets. It will open Friday, April 15 in the US, Canada, and around the world. In India, Fantastic Beasts 3 is available in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.