Will Johnny Depp play Dumbledore’s love interest?

There’s fierce speculation that Johnny Depp has been cast as Dumbledore’s love interest in the new Harry Potter spinoff movie series.

On Tuesday, Deadline confirmed that Depp had officially joined the cast of the 2018 sequel to the upcoming Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, which will be released this month.

While his role has yet to be confirmed, there are indications that he will play Gellert Grindelwald, who, according to Potter lore, was very close to the gay wizard Albus Dumbledore before they became arch enemies.

There are also reports that the 53-year-old Depp and his character will briefly appear in a cameo in this year’s Fantastic Beasts before taking a more central role in the second 2018 film.

Earlier this month, Harry Potter creator JK Rowling announced that there are plans to make five films in the spinoff series, and that, “I can tell you that we do talk about Dumbledore and Grindelwald”.

Rowling first revealed in 2007 that the character of Dumbledore, who went on to become the head of the Hogwarts wizarding school, “is gay”.

It’s not clear if Dumbledore’s romantic interest in Grindelwald was mutual, but we may finally find out in the new movies.

Starring Eddie Redmayne, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them tells the adventures of writer Newt Scamander in New York’s secret community of witches and wizards seven decades before Harry Potter attended Hogwarts. It releases in South Africa on 25 November.