Warner Bros. has now officially confirmed that Mads Mikkelsen (Doctor Strange, Rogue One) has signed on to replace Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald in the third Fantastic Beasts movie.
The trades first reported that the Hannibal actor was in talks to join the franchise as the villain a couple of weeks back, but Mikkelsen seemingly dismissed his involvement as "rumor" in a recent interview.
The studio has been searching for an actor to take over as Grindelwald since Depp announced that he'd been asked to "resign" from playing the character earlier this month. Though he didn't specify the reason at the time, this came just days after the Pirates of the Caribbean star lost a libel case against British tabloid The Sun, who labelled him a "wife-beater" in a 2019 article.
The still untitled Fantastic Beasts 3 is currently shooting in London. Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Jude Law and Ezra Miller are all set to reprise their respective roles from the previous instalments, with David Yates back behind the camera.
The movie was recently had its release date pushed back, and will now hit theatres on July 15, 2022, one wek after Captain Marvel 2.