Johnny Depp Signs On For FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Sequel - Is He Grindelwald?

Deadline is reporting that 3x Academy Award-nominee Johnny Depp has signed on for a co-starring role in the 2018 sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. No further details were provided on his role, but it's been confirmed by multiple sources that he will make a brief cameo in the first film, which is due out in theaters November 18.

The sequel is expected to head into production early next year with David Yates back in the director's chair and star Eddie Redmayne also returning for his second adventure as magizoologist Newt Scamander. J.K. Rowling, the magical mind behind the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, has already completed the film's screenplay.

To speculate for just a moment: considering how secretive the production team is being with his role, could Depp be bringing to life someone Potter fans have heard a lot about but rarely seen such as the legendary dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, who receives special mention in the extended synopsis, and has been heavily rumored to play a part in this new pentalogy?

Depp can be seen next reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth installment in his long-running Pirates franchise. He's currently filming Kenneth Branagh's Murder On The Orient Express and is expected to film Fantastic Beasts 2 before heading into the Tupac/Biggie drama Labyrinth and Universal Pictures' monster movie The Invisible Man.

So, what do you guys think? Sound off with your thoughts below!

There are growing dangers in the wizarding world of 1926 New York. Something mysterious is leaving a path of destruction in the streets, threatening to expose the wizarding community to the Second Salemers, a fanatical faction of No-Majs (American for Muggles) bent on eradicating them. And the powerful, dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, after wreaking havoc in Europe, has slipped away…and is now nowhere to be found.

Unaware of the rising tensions, Newt Scamander arrives in the city nearing the end of a global excursion to research and rescue magical creatures, some of which are safeguarded in the hidden dimensions of his deceptively nondescript leather case. But potential disaster strikes when unsuspecting No-Maj Jacob Kowalski inadvertently lets some of Newt’s beasts loose in a city already on edge—a serious breach of the Statute of Secrecy that former Auror Tina Goldstein jumps on, seeing her chance to regain her post. However, things take an ominous turn when Percival Graves, the enigmatic Director of Magical Security at MACUSA (Magical Congress of the USA), casts his suspicions on both Newt…and Tina.

Now allied, Newt and Tina, together with Tina’s sister, Queenie, and their new No-Maj friend, Jacob, form a band of unlikely heroes, who must recover Newt’s missing beasts before they come to harm. But the stakes are higher than these four outsiders—now branded fugitives—ever imagined, as their mission puts them on a collision course with dark forces that could push the wizarding and No-Maj worlds to the brink of war.