It’ll take a brave actor to accept the role of Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts 3, with the third installment in the Harry Potter prequel series already facing an uphill battle without even mentioning all of the behind the scenes turmoil. The franchise may have gotten off to a strong start with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but follow-up The Crimes of Grindelwald didn’t fare too well.
Not only did it earn over $150 million less at the box office than its predecessor to become the lowest-grossing installment in the Wizarding World, but it was also the first entry to secure a Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. All of the previous nine magical blockbusters had scored at least 74% on the aggregation site, but The Crimes of Grindelwald could only muster a soft 36%.
Critical and commercial numbers are down, creator and screenwriter J.K. Rowling is constantly finding herself in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons, and now whoever Warner Bros. ends up recasting as evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald will have an army of angry Johnny Depp fans to deal with, after the 57 year-old released a statement confirming that he had basically been asked to quit the franchise.
Who will replace him remains to be seen, but insider Grace Randolph claims that an offer is already out to another name, in the hopes that they’ll sign on and jump headfirst into Fantastic Beasts 3, which is already well into shooting.
#JohnnyDepp FIRED #FantasticBeasts3
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+ #AmberHeard will likely have role reduced #Aquaman2ADDITIONAL INFO JUST IN FROM MY SOURCES:
AT&T approves, Depp had filmed several scenes which must be re-shot, offer is already out to new actorhttps://t.co/U90WSfsN7x— Grace Randolph (@GraceRandolph) November 6, 2020
Of course, Colin Farrell is just a couple of hours away filming The Batman and already played Percival Graves in the first outing, and he seems like the obvious candidate to step in here given that all signs pointed to him being revealed as Grindelwald initially before Depp ended up making a surprise cameo in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. But for now, we’ll just have to wait and see what WB does.