An unofficial Harry Potter prequel that focuses on the origins of Voldemort has arrived online, seven months after it was given the green light by Warner Bros.
Voldemort: Origins Of The Heir is a 50-minute prequel that follows the story of Grisha McLaggen, the heir of Gryffindor, who leads the hunt for Tom Riddle, who has disappeared after the Hufflepuff heir is murdered.
The Tryangle Films production originally began a bid for funding on Kickstarter in 2016, but it was later pulled from the crowdfunding site after Warner Bros cited ‘copyright infringement’ within the project.
Now, it’s been released for the first time after director Gianmaria Pezzato struck a deal with Warner Bros in June last year that allowed the film to be released in a not-for-profit capacity.
“We wondered,’What made Tom Riddle become Voldemort? What happened in those years, and what really went down at Hogwarts when he came back?’ A lot goes unspoken’, Pezzato previously said of the project.
‘This is story we want to tell: The rise of the Dark Lord before Harry Potter and his first demise.’
Meanwhile, Harry Potter star recently responded to the backlash surrounding Johnny Depp’s involvement in the Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them sequel.
Depp will star as villainous wizard Gellert Grindelwald, but his casting has been a point of contention after he previously denied assaulting ex-wife Amber Heard.
“I can see why people are frustrated with the response that they were given from that,” Radcliffe told Entertainment Weekly.
“I’m not saying anything that anybody hasn’t already said — and this is a weird analogy to draw — [but] in the NFL, there are lots of players arrested for smoking weed and there is other people’s behaviour that goes way beyond that and it’s tolerated because they’re very famous players..”