J.K. Rowling may be busy working on the second film in her Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trilogy, but one fan film is getting reading to tell us a much cooler story: How He Who Shall Not Be Named became, well, He Who Shall Not Be Named.
Tryangle Films has released the debut trailer for Voldemort: Origins of the Heir, a high-production (and non-profit) fan film based in the Harry Potter universe. According to the plot synopsis, it’s inspired by events in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, detailing how Tom Riddle collected the Horcruxes and amassed power… to better understand the man who failed to kill The Boy Who Lived.
What made Tom Riddle become Voldemort? What happened in those years, and what really went down at Hogwarts when he came back? There are some clues in the books which have not been transposed at all in the movies, but a lot goes unspoken. This is the story we want to tell: the rise of the Dark Lord before Harry Potter and his first demise.
The production company is currently raising funds to complete the film, which they said will come out this October (assuming they raise the funds). In a statement to BuzzFeed, the production company says they have an agreement with Warner Bros. to release it on YouTube, though Warner Bros. didn’t confirm. Check out the trailer below, and marvel at how far fan films have come in the past decade, growing from home videos in the garage to fully professional feature-length presentations. Wands up for this one.
[YouTube]
Update: Added statement to BuzzFeed.