Disney Releases 'Artemis Fowl' Trailer and It's Basically the Next 'Harry Potter'

Disney usually backs the hero, but we all know that the villains are what really make the movie fun. Enter, Artemis Fowl. Viewers meet the anti-hero of Disney’s fantasy blockbuster in the first trailer. Artemis, a 12-year-old criminal mastermind, is the opposite of Harry Potter in every way. Forget morality, he’s totally OK with sneaking into a hidden magical world, kidnapping a fairy and holding her for ransom. He’s intelligent, awkward, super manipulative and wears an awesome suit. You and your kids are going to love him.

The film is based off of a series of children’s books by Irish author Eoin Colfer and is supposedly only going to cover the events of the first book. Rumors about a movie adaptation of this amazing series have been swirling around since the mid-2000s, so fans have been waiting for a long time. The books were popular enough to eek out a spot on The New York Times best-sellers list in a time when J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter books were totally dominating it.

But now that The Boy Who Lived’s story is long done, Hollywood, kids and parents are all looking for a successor. They might find it in anti-hero Artemis Fowl. He’s a genius and much edgier than young Harry Potter with a high-tech fantasy world that’s basically built for mind-blowing action sequences.

In the trailer, viewers get to see this new world and the fairies that live in it. This first trailer is focused on getting people acquainted with the setting and only shows young Artemis (played by unknown actor Ferdia Shaw) for a moment. There aren’t a whole lot of big names in this film with the exception of Josh Gad and Judi Dench, so Disney has the opportunity to mold this movie from scratch. Artemis Fowl is directed by Kenneth Branagh, who’s known for directing Cinderella, Thor and most recently, Murder on the Orient Express.

Artemis Fowl comes out on August 9, 2019.