According to Variety , the future of the Fantastic Beasts franchise in the Harry Potter universe is uncertain at the moment.
Representatives of Warner Bros. embarrassed by the scandals associated with the authors, as well as the decreased interest of the audience and the rather weak fees of the previous tape.
“Creatures” have already experienced three major scandals at the moment – first with the replacement of Johnny Depp with Mads Mikkelsen , then with J.K. Rowling ‘s statements regarding transsexuals, and later Ezra Miller’s problems with the law were added to the list .
Against the background of recent events, the studio was forced to pretend that Miller’s participation in the new film in the series was not so important. In addition, before the premiere of the tape, part of the cast did not actively communicate with the press due to problems related to Rowling’s position.
Dumbledore’s Secrets themselves experienced problems even at the start of production – after the weak rental of the sequel, the studio first postponed filming to finalize the project, and then the coronavirus pandemic began.
In addition, WarnerMedia , in light of its merger with Discovery, recently left chairman Anne Sarnoff , who was in charge of developing the universe. Now these duties will be taken over by other people.
And all this without saying that the audience was not too interested in films about Fantastic Beasts. Audiences complained about the overly convoluted script, too many characters, and not enough links to the original Potter books.
Analyst Jeff Block generally noted that the franchise does not seem overly successful right now:
The studio tried to rectify the situation by hiring Steve Kloves , who worked on the plots of all seven Harry Potter adaptations , to improve the script for the third part of the series , shifting the focus of the new tape to the story of Dumbledore.
More Warner Bros. tried to keep the budget of the third film in the region of $ 100 million, because the previous two films cost her $ 200 million each – but to no avail, since “Dumbledore’s Secrets” has already crept up to this indicator (without marketing).
At the same time, it is expected that the new tape will face additional problems in international territories – the mention of Dumbledore’s sexual orientation may affect rental in certain countries, and in the same Russia the tape was not released at all.
There is now a growing belief within Warner that the prequels are not worth the effort, time, and money. The script for the fourth film has not been written, and some speculate that the series is not realizing its ambitious five-picture plan.
So far, Warner Bros. wants to see the results of the third film, but it is likely that it will be the last for the franchise.
