Potterheads, rejoice! Tryangle Films has spent a bunch of time and money making a Harry Potter prequel, and you can watch it online FOR FREE. Voldemort: Origins of the Heir is a live-action fan movie that deals with Tom Riddle’s evolution into Lord Voldemort.
The film’s creators set up a Kickstarter campaign to fund their fan film in 2016, but swiftly and expectedly ran into licensing problems with Warner Bros., who which issued a takedown notice. Tryangle Films eventually got the green light from the studio, contingent on a couple of factors: Disclaimers noting that it’s not associated with J.K. Rowling or Warner Bros., and that it be released for free and on YouTube. Great news.
Here’s how the Verge describes Voldemort: Origins of the Heir:
The film follows an original character, Grisha Mac Laggen, the heir on of the four Hogwarts founders, Godric Gryffindor. The film plays out in flashbacks: Mac Laggen is captured and interrogated at the beginning of the film, and as she’s questioned, we get bits and pieces of the mystery that she’s trying to solve. It turns out that she’s on the hunt for Tom Riddle, who she knew as a student at Hogwarts, and whom she suspects is involved with the death of a wizard named Hepzibah Smith, a descendant of the Hufflepuff family. Even though she knows Riddle’s hunger for power, she tells her interrogators that she believes that he can be redeemed.