Warner Bros.
It’s still unclear how the Wizarding World will continue on the big screen. After all, the “ Fantastic Beasts ” series has not only been plagued by scandals behind the camera for years (the sacking of Johnny Depp, JK Rowling’s tweets that were perceived as transphobic, now also the uncertain future of Ezra Miller ), but also the global viewership seems to keep decreasing from part to part. Despite the eponymous animal beings, many fans simply miss the magic that the «Harry Potter» series once sprayed in the cinemas. «Fantastic Beasts,» on the other hand, seems to take an increasingly dark, emphatically political direction from film to film.
All of this is reflected in the box office numbers, especially in the USA. » Fantastic Beasts 3: Secrets of Dumbledore » grossed about $6 million in previews last Thursday, one day before the official US theatrical release. That’s respectable in itself, but still significantly less than Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (8.9 million) and Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald (9.2 million). The weekend forecasts are also noticeably lower: Part 3 will probably flush a little more than 40 million dollars into the coffers at the start – also significantly less than Part 1 (74 million) and Part 2 (62 million).
That’s actually far too little for a $200 million fantasy blockbuster. So if it were just a matter of US audience interest in the series, the production of » Fantastic Beasts 4 » would definitely be in serious jeopardy…
In Germany things are very different
But there are also circumstances that speak for a continuation of the «Harry Potter» prequel series. For the Hollywood studio Warner Bros., not only does the box office result of future films depend on the continuation of the Wizarding World on the big screen — the new blockbusters are always extra fuel for the existing «Harry Potter» business, including amusement parks, computer games and endless merchandising. Constant replenishment is important in order to remain relevant.
» «Fantastic Beasts 3» DVD, Blu-ray & 4K at Amazon *
There are also countries in which the reactions to «Fantastic Beasts 3» are far less muted — for example in Germany: After the film clearly had the strongest theatrical start of the year in Germany on its first weekend, it is also looking to pretty good for the second (Easter) weekend. With more than 600,000 viewers expected, the third part is currently pretty much on the same course as its predecessor — and at the same time quite clearly ahead of the same weekend of «Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them», which was released in 2016 without the pandemic penalty » only» attracted around 100,000 fewer visitors to the cinema over the second weekend.
The FILMSTARTS review of «Fantastic Beasts 3»
So it remains exciting. The next few weeks and months will show whether the series still has a future in its current form — especially since with Mads Mikkelsen a Grindelwald actor seems to have been found who inspires (almost) all fans and then the character after Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp maybe even longer than a film can embody. According to JK Rowling , he already has the concepts for (at least) two more films in the drawer…
Because of 5 films: The original idea for «Fantastic Beasts» was so completely different
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