Fantastic Beasts: Internal scandals, controversies rock the series

A day before the captivating world premiere of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Ezra Miller, who plays a major role in the upcoming second installment of the Harry Potter series, was… Arrested for disorderly conduct and harassment.

In another timeline, Miller is best known for Gorgeous red carpet looks And polite interviewswould have been front and center to promote “Dumbledore’s Secrets,” which opens in North American theaters April 15. And other surprising events Warner Bros. forced on downplaying Miller’s involvement in the film franchise. Complicating matters further is the fact that Miller is also making headlines next year, a DC Comics adaptation of Warner’s “The Flash.”

It’s the latest in a long list of controversies that have plagued “Fantastic Beasts.” The fantasy series was intended to extract newfound fortunes from the sprawling wizarding world of author J.K. Rowling after the 2011 movie “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” that capped a decade of films that defined a generation of blockbuster films that transformed Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson home. Names. But through a combination of bad luck, poor choices, a lack of creativity and dwindling box office returns, the prequel story — set decades before the adventures of Harry, Ron, and Hermione — has become a nuisance for Warner Bros. To extend the franchise’s importance beyond Potter and his companions, Fantastic Beasts couldn’t justify its existence without everyone’s favorite boy wizard.

“This is their Star Wars franchise. You expect more,” says showrunner relationships analyst Jeff Bock, referring to the first Disney franchise set in a galaxy far, far away. “This is meant to be a crown jewel, and it doesn’t act like one .”

Warner Bros. declined to comment.

For Warner Bros. Harry Potter is one of two major franchises (DC Comics is the other) that aims to support the studio’s movie strategy in an era when streaming services have made themselves the main competitors to traditional players. But what happens when your Tiffany brand begins to rust?

Miller’s arrest, which occurred nearly two years after a video emerged showing the actor strangling a woman outside a bar in Iceland, adds to the problems that have escalated since the green-lit third Fantastic Beasts movie. Due to the lackluster reception for the 2018 sequel, “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” Warner Bros. has postponed. Initially filming in 2019 to retool the third film rather than follow-up on the assembly line. COVID-19 has added more delays. At the time, Johnny Depp, who portrayed black magician Gilert Grindelwald in the first two installments, was forced out of films after he lost a defamation case against British tabloid The Sun, which published an article describing the actor as a “beater wife”. (Replaced by a Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.)

During the same period, “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling transformed from a beloved writer into a highly polarized figure due to her controversial views on Gender and gender identity. And last week, WarnerMedia CEO Anne Sarnoff, responsible for overseeing the larger Harry Potter universe, exited the company prior to its merger with Discovery. (Kevin Tsujihara was initially at the helm of everything Potter before he was fired as chairman in 2019.) Toby Emmerich, chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures, and Courtenay Valenti, head of production and development, run the film franchise, so the witch’s property isn’t Completely forgotten.

In case those tangles aren’t taxing enough, audiences don’t seem to love the series. After repeated complaints from moviegoers about the tangled plot, abundance of characters and a lack of enough meaningful relevance to the much-admired books, Warner Bros. Painstaking steps to retool the story and restore the magic of the original story. This meant hiring screenwriter Steve Kloves, who wrote seven “Harry Potter” films, to co-wrote “Fantastic Beasts 3” with Rowling. It also included banishing once notable figures, such as Tina Goldstein of Kathryn Watterson, to the fringes in favor of increasing screen time for Dumbledore and Jude Law’s Dumbledore and Mikkelsen Grindelwald. But it didn’t completely help. miscellaneous Senior film critic Peter Debruge called the latter movie a “dramatically improved sequel,” but for the most part, Dumbledore’s Secrets wasn’t special. we will It was received.

“There were some franchises that got in trouble, but not in that way,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s School of Film. “This is a confluence of events that does not bode well.”

At the box office, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” was a commercial success, bringing in more than $800 million worldwide. But the follow-up, “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” was attacked by negative reviews and landed with $650 million worldwide, a roughly 20% drop from the first film. It’s the lowest-grossing Potter movie to date. The upcoming Dumbledore Secrets movie faces a particularly fraught cinematic scene. Since COVID-19 has turned the theatrical business on its head, only five Hollywood films have grossed at least $500 million at the worldwide box office. This means that the beloved Fantastic Beasts 3 movie or not will struggle to get close to its predecessors in terms of box office revenue.

Internationally, where the series is particularly popular, the third series, “Fantastic Beasts,” faces other challenges. Dumbledore is openly gay in the latest movie, which could damage the box office in some places. China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have strict censorship mandates regarding sex, insults, and other aspects that are inconsistent with that nation’s cultural views. “The Secrets of Dumblemore” will not be shown in Russia, another country known for removing scenes of films that include homosexuality, due to its invasion of Ukraine.

These drawbacks may be cause for concern, because the first two batches of “Fantastic Beasts” generated nearly 75% of revenue from overseas sales. And the cost of producing tent poles has not become less expensive even as the global box office of Hollywood films has shrunk. After paying $200 million for each of the first two films, Warner Bros. A concerted effort to curb the “Dumbledore Secrets” budget, and work to keep the price in the $100 million high range. But expensive COVID-19 protocols ended up wiping out those efforts. The third film still had a $200 million budget, not including expensive marketing costs.

Declining box office sales indicate that Fantastic Beasts has not charmed fans or turned young children into aspiring witches and wizards. This has resounding effects on the larger Wizarding World, which has become so much more than just a movie franchise. There are Universal Studios theme parks in Orlando, Hollywood, and Japan, plus live events, studio tour stands, the hit Broadway play in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” and endless consumer products that could fill the cupboards at Gringotts…and then some. Think hundreds of millions in profits.

“Proceeds from feature films are the tip of the iceberg here,” Galloway says. “It’s critical for their business moving forward.”

Obviously, Warner Bros. She had bet too much on Rowling, which allowed her to extend flimsy source material About “Fantastic Beasts” in five films. But Rowling’s repeated comments against transgender women have put the studio in a precarious position: indicting the literary dean and jeopardizing the billion-dollar relationship; He defended it and risked alienating fans who were already on the fence. Internally at Warners, there is a growing sense that the prequel series is no longer worth the time and treasure given the embarrassment of having to replace Depp, the Rowling and Miller landmines, and the high costs associated with all that Hogwarts.

Rowling is active on Twitter but avoids the press these days mostly because she believes her comments have been repeatedly taken out of context by the media, according to people familiar with the matter. After attending HBO Max’s 20th Anniversary Special on HBO Max, Rowling made a rare appearance at the London premiere of Fantastic Beasts 3. However, she has stopped talking to reporters and has not taken red carpet photos with the actors. These actions, as well as her near-total silence on social media regarding the release of “Dumbledore’s Secrets,” come in stark contrast to her involvement in the promotion of the first two “Fantastic Beasts” films.

As for Law, Eddie Redmayne, who plays naturalist wizard Newt Scamander, and the other faces of the prequel franchise, they are even more shy with their fears of being caught in the crossfire. Journalists will inevitably ask about Rowling’s controversial beliefs, and while they may disagree, they don’t want to offend Rowling, says one source. Contractually, actors must engage in “well-intentioned publicity efforts,” but there’s not much the studio can do to get their hands on it. Much of the publicity for the film was limited to the scale IMAX fan event In New York City and at a three-day international press release in London, reporters are given roughly five to 10 minutes to talk to representatives—barely enough time to investigate questions. And let’s be honest, junkets aren’t really known to produce many Mike Wallace moments.

As for what next? There is speculation as to whether “Fantastic Beasts” will fulfill its ambitions as a five-movie franchise. The sources confirmed that there is no scenario for the fourth batch at the present time. Warner Bros. executives are waiting. To see how Dumbledore’s Secrets is being received before the four and five films are given the go-ahead.

Analysts believe that Warner Bros. You could save face by returning to the trusted favorites of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For example, Chris Columbus, director of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” has expressed interest in adapting the theatrical show Cursed Child — which picks up right after the epilogue in Deathly Hallows and focuses on Harry, Ron, Hermione, and their descendants — for the big screen. (Although Warner Bros. is an investor in Tony’s award-winning play, Rowling owns the rights to “Cursed Child.”) The potter and company could also find new life in live broadcasts; Although no official information is in the works, there are early talks about a TV series related to “Harry Potter” for HBO Max. Friendly advice? Batilda Bagshot’s “A History of Magic” may not be the most commercially viable Potter text to move on to the next.

“The only way to get ‘Harry Potter’ back on the map is to go back to the original characters,” says Exhibitor Relationship’s Bock. “This is where the money is at the box office.”