Does video show trailer for new 2020 Harry Potter movie? Fact Check

A video is circulating social media claiming to show the trailer for a 2020 Harry Potter movie, which according to the video is to be named Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The most popular instance of the trailer on Facebook, above, has – at the time of writing – nearly 1 million shares and nearly 25 million views, and is simply captioned “TRAILER HARRY POTTER 2020”.

FALSE

Despite the claims in the caption and the video, this isn’t the trailer for a new additional to the Harry Potter film franchise. Rather this is a fake fan made trailer. Such trailers are designed by fans of a franchise and do not depict genuine film releases. They frequently confuse fans and are subsequently mistaken as genuine, especially those that are well executed.

As is the case here, fan trailers will typically consist of video footage from previous movies belonging to a franchise, as well as footage from other unrelated movies that feature actors from the cast of a franchise.

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For example, in this fake trailer, the creator has used scenes from a number of past Harry Potter movies, as well as scenes from other movies including Jungle, starring Daniel Radcliffe, and a TV series called Snatch, featuring Rupert Grint.

At the time of writing, there is no movie – nor any public plans to make a movie – titled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. However this title is indeed used by a 2016 two part play written by Jack Thorne and JK Rowling that is performing in theatres.