Harry Potter has been one of the great franchises of the last decade. Warner Bros. has wanted to keep it alive and expand the magical universe of J.K. Rowling with the prequel Fantastic Beasts.
However, things have not gone as the studio expected. The truth is, after the premiere of The Secrets of Dumbledore-the third installment-the thing does not look too good for Newt Scamander and his.
According to Variety, the Harry Potter franchise is now paralyzed. Something that clashes with the comments made by the new CEO of the company David Zaslav. It’s the same name as Batgirl has been canceled.
“We’re going to focus on franchises,” Zaslav said a couple of days ago about the content they’re going to develop at Warner Bros. “We haven’t had a Superman movie in 13 years. We haven’t made a Harry Potter movie in 15 years.
The DC and Harry Potter films generated much of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures’ profits over the past 25 years.” The CEO also stated If we could do something with JK on Harry Potter in the future.”
So, Zaslav does not want to let go of the magical world created by Rowling so easily.
Still, the removed media states:
“There are no active conversations with Rowling about the development of another Harry Potter film.”
Also: “There’s also nothing in active development at Wizarding World at Warner Bros. It includes the Harry Potter franchises and the Fantastic Beasts.”
Does this mean that the story of the battle between Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore has ended?
Unfortunately, there is still no official confirmation that Warner Bros. has decided to cancel its original plans to make a pentalogy. Still, the truth is that the death of the Harry Potter prequel saga seems to be an important possibility.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was released in 2016. It grossed more than $814 million worldwide. The first installment was well-received by fans and critics. But things changed with the sequel, The Crimes of Grindelwald.
It totaled more than 654 million dollars worldwide. The story did not quite settle with Harry Potter fans.
That, added to the controversies with the dismissal of Johnny Depp, the scandals of Ezra Miller, the transphobic comments of Rowling, and how the pandemic has changed the way of consuming cinema, has affected the last installment.
The Secrets of Dumbledore grossed more than $405 a million worldwide and didn’t generate too much buzz. Eddie Redmayne, the actor in charge of playing Newt Scamander, recently stated that he knows nothing about Fantastic Beasts 4:
“No. It’s more of a question for J.K. Rowling, David Yates, and the Warner people, but I’m afraid I don’t know. I can’t say anything. I love playing Newt. He’s a good man.”
The idea with this pentalogy is that the story culminates with the great duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald that meant the villain’s defeat.
It seems that fans will never get to see that epic confrontation and that the story has already ended with Fantastic Beasts 3.
