Warner Bros. is not happy with performance of "Fantastic Beasts"

"Fantastic Beasts: The Mysteries of Dumbledore" topped last week's list of movie novelties. However, instead of rejoicing, Warner Bros. producers have become discouraged. The fact is that the $43 million box office performance of the third installment indicates that interest in the prequel series of Harry Potter stories is steadily declining. In 2018, the second Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindale grossed $62 million at the box office in its first week, while the first Fantastic Beasts and Where They Live in 2016 earned $72 million during the same period. The negative trend, as they say, is evident there.

"We see a drop in box office receipts with each new 'Fantastic Creatures' movie, but this is another in a long line of pictures that have collected more money than other movie releases from the Harry Potter universe," commented Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

Why is the box office of "Fantastic Beasts" dropping with each new film?

Experts say that the popularity of the franchise is declining as a result of the controversy about transgender people, which was started in social networks by the author of its stories Joan Rowling. In addition, the replacement of Johnny Depp as Grindewald by Mads Mikkelsen affected the drop in grosses, although the performance of the Dane in the third hasn't got any complaints from critics or from ordinary spectators. And the third factor that threw in its two cents to the negative dynamics was the behavior of Ezra Miller, who embodied Creedence Berbon on the screen. The 29-year-old actor was recently arrested while vacationing in Hawaii for hooliganism and harassment in a local bar, which had an unflattering effect on the promotion of his recent films.

Does the box office performance of "The Dumbledore Mysteries" mean that the fourth and fifth installments of "Fantastic Beasts" will be canceled?

Warner Bros. producers originally planned to make "Fantastic Creatures' ' into a trilogy. But in 2016, Rowling announced that she had enough material for a pentalogy, that is, a saga of five parts that will cover the history of the Wizarding World from 1926 to 1945. And her main attention as an author will be attached to the global confrontation between wizards and muggles, led by Grindewald.

However, as it became clear by this date, the franchise had not been as successful as the studio's producers had hoped it would be. And with all the off-screen inconsistencies and not enough compelling stories to sustain viewer interest, the future of the saga is in question. A few days before the premiere of The Dumbledore Mysteries, it was reported that the film's prospects would depend on how the third installment would be received by audiences and how much money it would bring in. If the box office declines after the first week at the box office, then the fourth and fifth parts of "Fantastic Beasts" may never make it to the big screen.

To sum up, the Fantastic Beasts movie series has been tainted by controversial moments, underdeveloped storylines and characters, and various departures from the canon of the Harry Potter works. As a result, this led many viewers to ignore the release of the new parts. But even if Warner Bros.'s treatment of the Wizarding World is destined to end with Fantastic Beasts: The Dumbledore Mysteries, movie-goers at least got to see a few happy turns and get a taste of the epic duel between two prominent wizards, Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindewald.