While Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 has already been shooting since mid-July, with the first Fantastic Beasts 2 set photo surfacing last month, it seems the cast is still coming together. A new report reveals that Danish-Japanese actor David Sakurai has come aboard to play a villainous new character, connected to the dark wizard Grindlewald, played by Johnny Depp. It isn't clear if David Sakurai has already started shooting his scenes, or how long production is expected to last for.

Deadline broke the news today, revealing that David Sakurai is playing a character named Krall. The character is described as "one of the ambitious and sulky henchman" to Gellert Grindlewald. The story is set in the year 1927, a few months after the events of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, where magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) captured Grindlewald in the first movie. Grindlewald promised that he would make his escape, which he does in this second movie. To stop him, a young Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) will team up with Newt Scamander.

We also reported in June that the production will need a teenage Dumbledore, although it is unclear whether or not that particular character has been cast or not. The cast also includes Callam Turner as Newt Scamander's brother, with Zoe Kravitz also reprising her role as Leta Lestrange, alongside Katherine Waterston as Auror Tina Goldstein, Alison Sudol as her sister, Queenie Goldstein and Dan Fogler as the No-Maj Jacob Kowalski. The sequel will also introduce franchise newcomers such as Claudia Kim, who portrays a young woman who features as an attraction at a wizard circus, Olafur Darri Olafsson as Skender, who runs the wizard circus, Ingvar Sigurdsson as a bounty hunter, William Nadylam as a new wizard named Yusuf Kama and Kevin Guthrie as Abernathy, the head of the Magical Congress in the U.S. The story is set in both Paris and the U.K., with the production shooting in both countries, but it seems that the story will also return to the U.S., unless this Abernathy character will be travelling abroad.

Fantastic Beasts director David Yates returns to the helm, directing from a screenplay by J.K. Rowling. David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves and Lionel Wigram are producing the film, with Tim Lewis, Neil Blair, Rick Senat and Danny Cohen serving as executive producers. The new adventure is being filmed at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, which has been the cinematic home of the Wizarding World since the first Harry Potter film. The film has been given a November 16, 2018 release date, putting it up against the 20th Century Fox crime thriller Widows starring Viola Davis.

Collaborating with director David Yates behind the scenes, the creative teams are led by Oscar-winning director of photography Philippe Rousselot, three-time Oscar-winning production designer Stuart Craig, three-time BAFTA Award-winning editor Mark Day, four-time Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood, Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Tim Burke and Oscar-nominated visual effects supervisor Christian Manz. David Sakurai recently appeared in one episode of Netflix's Iron Fist as Scythe, and he will next be seen in Acts of Vengeance and Unbroken: Path to Redemption.