That famous inscription at Ellis Island about accepting the tired, poor and huddled masses might need an addendum: "And give me your expelled wizards, too."
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The second trailer for the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them debuted on Monday during the MTV Movie Awards telecast, and it showed for the first time rogue wizard Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) entering the US via New York's famous immigration checkpoint.
"First trip to America," an official asks him.
"Yes."
"Anything edible in there," he asks of the single, small briefcase the visibly nervous Scamander is carrying. "Any livestock?"
No, the wizard says, though judging by the noises emanating from within he's not being entirely honest. But after he flips the locking mechanism to "Muggle Worthy", all the official sees in the case is a magnifying glass, a map of New York, a scarf (in the colours of Hufflepuff, one of the four houses of Scamander's alma mater, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry), and a pair of pyjamas ...
... that frankly look rather like those Redmayne wore in his Oscar-winning turn as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.
A voice – owner as yet unknown – tells us Scamander was "kicked out of Hogwarts for endangering human life with a beast", though at least one of the teachers there spoke up for him. "What makes Albus Dumbledore so fond of you," the speaker wonders.
It's a trailer littered with clues that lead in both directions – back to the familiar world of Harry Potter and co, forwards to a new realm of Speakeasies, politics and crime (though to go forwards we're also going backwards, to 1920s New York).
"International Wizard Hunt Intensifies" reads a headline on the back page of a newspaper – clearly intended for the wizarding market, since its photographs appear to be "alive". A search is underway for a wizard named Alberto Macellarius, who is suspected of "counterfeiting wands and murder", though the bigger mystery surely is why this story is on the back page rather than the front.
From the first trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, released last December, we discovered that a bunch of magical creatures had been brought to New York in a suitcase, and some had escaped. From this trailer, we've discovered a fair bit more about the world JK Rowling has conjured specifically for the big screen – the first instalment of what is expected to be a three-film series.
We're bound to get more trailers, too, each delivering a slow trickle of clues designed, and guaranteed, to whet the appetite of Potter fans young and old. For them, November – when the film opens worldwide – can't come soon enough.
