People have been skeptical about the Fantastic Beasts franchise since the very beginning, which is fair enough when announcing five big budget blockbusters right out of the gate was ambitious to the point of cynical, never mind the source material being a slim fictional textbook originally written to raise money for charity.
Things got off to a decent start with the opening chapter, but the wheels began to come off when The Crimes of Grindelwald arrived. As the lowest-grossing and worst-reviewed Wizarding World movie ever made, the pressure increased exponentially on the next installment, which has been through some troubles of its own.
As well as dealing with the pandemic, The Secrets of Dumbledore binned Johnny Depp in favor of Mads Mikkelsen, which ignited an online firestorm. The finished product is finally coming to theaters in April, and we’re very curious to see if Fantastic Beasts as a whole is going to sink or swim in the aftermath.
Somewhat surprisingly, veteran franchise producer David Heyman revealed during a Warner Bros. event that the writing process for the fourth film hasn’t even been started yet, but he did tease a potential new location.
“Well, we haven’t yet started writing the next film. So we’ll have to see. If I have my way, we’ll definitely be going to Japan.”
The most pertinent question is whether or not anyone will care by the time the dust settles on The Secrets of Dumbledore, which has to be viewed as perhaps the most pivotal entry in the entire Wizarding World saga to date. If it’s a hit with critics and audiences then the fans and WB can breathe a sigh of relief, but questions will be asked if it isn’t.