Fantastic Beasts 3: Secrets of Dumbledore made 43 million dollars in the US opening weekend.
Comparing that
- Fantastic Beasts 2: Crimes of Grindelwald made 62 million opening weekend in 2018.
- Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them made 74 million, with its US opening weekend in 2016.
This franchise was hyped on the original release, where the Harry Potter movies ended in 2011, with the final film earning 1.3 billion globally.
The first Fantastic Beasts released with 814 million made globally and a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, for modest reviews.
The sequel however was a critical flop, getting a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes and earning 655 million dollars, for a 150+ million dollar drop compared to the original.
Which 655 million sounds good, but on a budget of 200 million, with easily 100 million in marketing, things don’t look good after ticket splits.
Studios normally get 50-60% of sales depending on which week of release in the US, but international releases only are 20-40%.
Which for Fantastic Beasts 2, 495 million of the 655 million was made intentionally, meaning that movie likely didn’t make money.
For Fantastic Beasts 3, it’s being projected the box office total will only be 400-500 million globally, which on a budget of 200 million, with again 100 million in marketing and ticket splits, puts this at likely a 100 million dollar loss.
That’s a basic rundown on the financials, but what really caused this?
First up, scandals for people involved.
Johnny Depp was asked to leave the project, but still paid 10 million for the movie due to contractual issues.
His firing was heavily debated, where due to evidence surfacing, people are angry Warner asked him to leave, but not his ex wife Amber Heard for Aquaman 2.
Next is Ezra Miller, who Warner invested a lot into, with making them a major character in the Fantastic Beast films, while also casting as the Flash for the Justice League.
Ezra Miller is undeniably a regretted investment, where they’ve been arrested recently in Hawaii, had a restraining order put on them, had the police called 10x on them and has now been suspended from Warner, where they likely suffer from a mental illness.
Again, something which their presence angers fans of Depp.
Third and final is JK Rowling, who alienated some fans over her take on transgender people, where she has shown respect for choices, but said she doesn’t see them as the same as people born biologically as men/women.
Regardless of stance on this, it’s been heavily debated, where it likely cost some viewers.
The Fantastic Beast movies clearly lost fans due to all of this.
Second, quality.
74%
36%
48%
Those are the reviews of the Fantastic Beasts films in order.
Comparing that to the Harry Potter movies.
81%
82%
90%
88%
77%
84%
77%
96%
Those were the Rotten Tomatoes scores of the Harry Potter movies from first to last.
The Harry Potter movies have a visible higher quality, where even the worst reviewed one has better reviews over the best Fantastic Beast movie.
The problem is likely process.
The Harry Potter movies all started as books, where they had reviews, the ability to talk with fans and could have a skilled screenwriter convert a good book into a good movie.
Fantastic Beasts hired Rowling to be the screenwriter, where there’s no books behind Fantastic Beasts and she’s proof being an amazing author isn’t the same as being an amazing screenwriter.
I’ve now seen all three movies and general review is they are a little lazy. As a kid or adult, I can watch any of the Harry Potter films and stay engaged. These movies are geared more for adults and they are just boring.
For the flaw of Fantastic Beasts, quality was a problem.
Third issue, the biggest in my opinion, the name.
Fantastic Beasts
There’s really nothing that connects that name to Harry Potter and to this day, I still believe some people aren’t aware that the franchise is connected to Harry Potter.
Harry Potter clearly had mythical creatures as an important part to the story, but never was that huge of a deal. It seemed like a big leap.
If they titled it “Hogwarts Stories” or something similar, everyone would have seen the Harry Potter connection and from a story perspective, it’d make the movies easier to do.
Fantastic Beasts was a key part of the story in the first film, but in the sequels became an afterthought, to the point it’s barely in the fliers for the movie.
It was a really poorly done piece of marketing and I believe if the first one was titled “Hogwarts Stories: The Fantastic Beasts”, it would have made a billion dollars in 2016, versus 800 million. Same for the sequels.
Final thoughts
I really love Harry Potter and was happy Warner wanted to continue the franchise, but from the core idea to the process of releasing it the team hired, it seems like a failure.
The original plan announced by Rowling was for five Fantastic Beast movies.
My guess is this movie does see a hundred million dollar loss and the sequels are cancelled, where they’ll explore just ending it with an HBO Max special or a spinoff away from the Fantastic Beasts brand and core cast.
It was a try, but to make a cheap pun, it lost the magic.