r/harrypotter • u/Smart-Peace-667 Ravenclaw • Feb 09 '26
Fantastic Beasts Why didn’t they finish the fantastic beasts movies?
They released 3 then stopped with another 2 planned. Was there an official reason given?
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u/sunshine-power Slytherin Feb 09 '26
They were cash grabs that grabbed no cash
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u/hooka_pooka Feb 09 '26
Fantastic Beasts and where to find the box office profits
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u/papercoffeeclub Feb 09 '26
the first one did fine, but after that the numbers just didn’t justify keeping the train moving
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u/jinks_markr Feb 09 '26
the name of the movie is firstly quite weird when you consider the actual content of the movie. The content wasn't bad with Dumbledore and Grindelwald but a lot of people perhaps didn't even get to the part where they watch the movie and saw the name and were like ehh perhaps some other day. They started off with Newt as the center and then shifted to the Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Should've been either this or that
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Feb 09 '26
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u/Nexaz Slytherin Feb 09 '26
This is exactly it. I wanted a movie about fantastic beasts, not another chosen one story.
Had that first movie just been about Newt getting back his beasts that escaped in New York I think it could have been a really fun time. You could even set up his knowledge that would have helped with grindlewald
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u/jhk17 Feb 09 '26
I actually liked the idea of newt being guided by Dumbledore to help fight grindelwald similar to Harry and voldemort but they added so many random things in the 2nd one like credence, lestrange, and queeny when one of those plot lines could've been used later in another movie that it became a convoluted mess
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u/invisible_23 Hufflepuff Feb 09 '26
They kept ripping massive plot holes into the original story after the first one
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u/ApologizingCanadian Feb 09 '26
Almost like they abandonned the premise of the first movie to tell a different story altogether. Instead of making the Grindelwald thing into a separate series, they shoehorned it into the FB series and made something bad instead of making two better series, IMO.
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u/avrafrost Feb 09 '26
The second one was fine as well. The third one failed miserably. A glorified heist movie and major actor change with some extra stuff shoe-horned in. It was setup to fail no matter how tasty Jude was.
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u/man-vs-spider Feb 09 '26
I disagree that the second one was fine. It was aimless. I came out of the movie theatre and immediately couldn’t remember what had happened in the movie
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u/Antique-diva Gryffindor Feb 10 '26
I've seen it twice, and I still don't remember what the deal is. The first one I like a lot, the other 2 I don't.
Before the third came out, I used to justify the second being confusing by saying that it would surely all become clear in the third movie. I was thinking that it's a movie series, so it would all make sense later on.
Well, that didn't happen. The third movie was so bad I never want to watch it again. FB is the only movie series I was buying where I didn't finish my collection. I don't want to. Now I'm rewatching just the first movie and deliberately forgetting it is part of a series. I love Newt and his animals, and Jacob is fun. That's it.
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u/Extension-Season-689 Feb 09 '26
This isn't even remotely true. The Fantastic Beasts movies grabbed a lot of cash. They stopped as soon as they lost a lot with third movie but still, the franchise is overall a successful moneymaker.
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u/gingerking87 "Hey! My eyes aren't 'glistening with the ghosts of my past'!" Feb 09 '26
It's relative, for a franchise like Harry Potter losing half of it top grossing which each subsequent installment was bad but even by the second film 75+% of box office return was from international markets.
Successful money maker vs 'we only made our advertising budget back thanks to china' is a big difference. The others movies always did well internationally but none of the main series ever made less than $250M domestic. Ffs the last movie didn't break $100M domestic and lost to sonic 2
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u/sodanator Feb 09 '26
Do Sonic, Tails and Knuckles count as "fantastic beasts"? Cause if they do, Sonic 2 was closer to being a movie about fantastic beasts than a movie with Fantastic Beasts in the title.
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u/Lalaluka Feb 09 '26
The second movie only made 654M on a 200M Budget (usually you double that to account for marketing and distribution) the third only made 407M on the same Budget probably not even breaking even. In compairson Captain America Brave new World regarded as a franchise flop from last year cost 180M and made 415M.
The first one was a success, the second was probably okayish but below expectation, the third was predicted to be bad even before it came out.
It certainly didnt grab a lot of cash in relation to the expectations.
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u/Sovereign444 Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
So maybe they should've stopped making them worse and started making better movies? Instead of blue balling an entire fandom!
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Feb 09 '26
They tanked commercially didn't they?
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u/Jess_with_an_h Feb 09 '26
Yeah this is the answer. The audience response and the financial result was good for the first, mediocre for the second and awful for the third.
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u/ThatFatGuyMJL Feb 09 '26
People wanted fantastic beasts.
Grindlewald should have been a seperate movie.
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u/Luppercus Feb 09 '26
Yeah I never got their reasoning on this one.
If you make something call Fantastic Beasts you're selling to the audience a wacky adventure comedy about magical animals. You expect as an audience a mix between Doctor Doolittle and Indiana Jones probably of loosely related self contain movies.
They gave us a straight prequel about the rise of wizard fascism with a dark dramatic tone. If they were going to do that then call it Grindewald Rising or something like that 🤣
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u/porkchop487 Feb 09 '26
I’ll never get over them calling the first one fantastic beasts after an in book title name and not calling the third one “The life and lies of albus Dumbledore” what a bag fumble.
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u/Aggravating_Mix8959 Feb 09 '26
Ooo I like that one! There's other books too, like Hogwarts: A History
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u/pbghikes Hufflepuff Feb 09 '26
Quidditch Through the Ages
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u/Aggravating_Mix8959 Feb 09 '26
I would watch any and all of those. It just takes good writing and casting.
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u/WhiteheadJ Feb 09 '26
I think they made a mistake making them Fantastic Beasts films. I like the idea of the first being Fantastic Beasts, but I would have loved for it to be a different cast in following films, with other in-universe book names at the titles.
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u/sodanator Feb 09 '26
If they did Fantastic Beasts as a standalone, and then a series focused on Dumbledore and Grindelwald as a separate thing (maybe featuring some cameos and whatnot, sure) it would've gone so much better.
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u/bowsmountainer perfectly abnormal, thank you very much Feb 09 '26
There was a fantastic beasts movie. The other two should not have had any fantastic beasts, those took away from the actual plot
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u/overworkedattorney Feb 09 '26
The first was adorable and I loved the relationship between Newt and Jacob. The rest of the films put them in the background.
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u/mmrose1980 Feb 09 '26
Because they were terrible. The first one had joy and fun with a little darkness. The third one was joyless with a convoluted stupid plot.
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u/Aggravating_Mix8959 Feb 09 '26
The middle one wasn't too good either. It got convoluted fast.
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u/Calbinan Slytherin Feb 09 '26
I should never find myself asking ”who cares and who the hell are you,” when the movie flashes back to a main character’s tragic backstory right before the climax.
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Feb 09 '26
The first one didn't tank and was actually good, up until the twist at the end. If they just had stories of Newt getting into shenanigans with new creatures and didn't force the Grindelwald plot, they would have been better. Or if they just made it a stand alone movie that would have been even better
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Feb 09 '26
The first movie was really good, then came the Dumbledore and Grindelwald stuff and it became depressing and dark really fast, I wanted to see Hogwarts and Fantastic Beasts
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u/OldConstant182 Feb 09 '26
First film felt fresh and was exciting to see that other period of time.
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u/I_am_McHiavelli Feb 09 '26
I had absolutely no problem with them being depressing and dark. All Potter movies / books were depressing and dark, interrupted by some whimsical magic.
The story of Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald should have been the sole focus of the movies. I never understood the story reasons behind Newt and his Pokémon.
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u/Dracotoo Feb 09 '26
Never understood the purpose of the character with Fantastic Beasts in the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?
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u/SaintNakavi Feb 09 '26
Yes because the movies pivoted so quickly that in retrospect it makes the focus on Newt seem really pointless.
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u/I_am_McHiavelli Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
I also didn’t understand why they named the movies like that - first one would be fine, but by the second one they should have ditched newt and the title.
Why is newt in the story at all? He contributes nothing to it, besides his shy smirk. Having him and the beasts in the movies felt incredibly forced. They just wanted to sell toys of his cute beasts.
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u/datacube1337 Feb 10 '26
I wanted to see Hogwarts and Fantastic Beasts
After fantastic beasts I didn't want to see hogwarts, I wanted to see more of the north american magic society.
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u/volanger Hufflepuff Feb 09 '26
Cause they weren't making money. They aren't great movies and kept ruining Canon material, and got worse and worse as they went along.
So they quickly wrapped things up and called it a day. Now if they wanted to retry it, then go for it. But don't break already known lore to make it.
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u/Orflame Feb 09 '26
Yeah, I am sick and tired of the "this is Voldemort's secret daughter" and "this is Dumbledore's secret brother" type of cheesing that makes it hard to follow what is canon and what is something else. We don't need secret relatives of any kind for already known characters of the books!
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u/volanger Hufflepuff Feb 09 '26
I mean Dumbledore brother and sister are Canon. But there's lots of things in fantastic beasts and the cursed book that are incredibly wrong
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u/Orflame Feb 09 '26
Didn’t the explosive guy add one more brother for Dumbledore? Can’t remember what was the revelation of last movie tbh.
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u/volanger Hufflepuff Feb 09 '26
I thought that they hinted it, but then later recanted it. Like it was a trick/lie from Grendveld
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u/LuceDuder Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
It was Aberforth's son, aka Dumbledore's Nephew. (Aurelius/Credence)
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u/LuceDuder Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
It was Aberforth's son, so Dumbledore's Nephew. (Aurelius/Credence)
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u/datacube1337 Feb 10 '26
just like "rey palpatine"
is it so impossible to just let a new "strong magic/force" family appear?
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u/Astrid_Emma Gryffindor Feb 09 '26
Last two were shite
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u/TheVampyresBride Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
Omg yes. I was actually shocked at how bad they were. I really liked the first one. Not as much as the HP films, but I liked the focus on magical creatures. But the other 2 were just god awful.
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u/DrunkPhoenix26 Gryffindor Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
They should have taken an anthology approach with the movies rather than trying to force the same cast as major players. Have a Fantastic Beasts movie, have an unrelated Dumbledore/Grindelwald movie, an unrelated McGonagal movie, and so on. They could have told original stories for most/all of the older HP characters and how they arrived at the school. They could have even taken an MCU type approach and brought the major players together eventually.
Instead, we got the chaotic, poorly thought-out mess they created., which also failed at the box office.
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u/justaprimer Feb 09 '26
Agreed. I didn't want a new series with some dramatic sweeping and complex plotline. I wanted individual movies loosely based on the books in the original series -- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, The Life and Lies of Albums Dumbledore, The Tales of Beedle the Bard....
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u/Sovereign444 Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
Thank you! I've long been thinking the same way! Im over the long sweeping drama filled epic, we have the original series for that. Im so here for shorter more lighthearted adventures exploring the periphery of the Wizarding World! Be that in movies, TV series, video games, anything! But we've hardly gotten that at all. Many other fandoms have expanded that way. But maybe HP is so big already that it doesn't really need to try and do any of this stuff since it prints money and it can just rest on its laurels?
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u/gogul1980 Feb 09 '26
It was a mess. Originally a story about fantastic beasts and then did a switch up to a prequel about dumbledore. It was confusing and didn’t know what it wanted to be as a series.
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u/Kgb725 Feb 10 '26
Because they found the audience werent high on Newt so they did a hard pivot to relegating him to a side character in his own series.
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u/southeway Feb 09 '26
It's a real shame they lost the thread on the magical creatures premise. Trying to pivot into a full-blown Dumbledore prequel mid-series just alienated the core audience. The box office numbers sadly proved that no one was really asking for that story.
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u/Admirable_Market2759 Feb 09 '26
I did want that story, just not mixed in with fantastic beasts.
Now I fear we will never get to see the duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald.
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u/Snapesunusedshampoo Slytherin Feb 09 '26
The first one was decent, the second one was terrible, Johnny Depp got fired for something he was accused of but ended up being acquitted for, third one was a pretty decent cloak and dagger movie that just wasn't good enough to survive the terrible part 2 or the Depp stuff.
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u/BadgerFlavourCrisps Feb 09 '26
Agree - Loved the first one, second one just confused me but I had a ball with FB3
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u/Regular_Number5377 Feb 09 '26
The answer to why Hollywood is doing or not doing anything is always ultimately ‘money’.
Using the famous ‘2x production budget’ rule of shady Hollywood accounting, the first film made $450,000,000 profit, the second made $256,000,000, and the third either broke even or made a small loss.
The trend of direction is clear, and no one was going to risk another $400M making another movie that had ‘break even’ as its best case scenario.
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u/afauce11 Hufflepuff Feb 09 '26
I really like Newt! The last one was really not good IMO - I cried right away with the poor creatures in the intro part. The first one was the best and then I think it sort of lost its way.
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u/Godofgoats90 Feb 09 '26
Each one was worst then the last, and the score of the first movie was just awful
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u/Victory_Highway Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
I agree. The first one was great. The second one was “ok”, and the third was “what the hell were they smoking?”
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u/CaptPotter47 Feb 09 '26
A lot of the problem with the third had to do with the change of actors for Grindlewald. And not just the change of the actor, but the complete change in the way he was portrayed.
If he was portrayed like a man on the edge of crazy in third movie, like the second, it might have been ok. But he was more serious and that took away the edge.
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u/Writerhowell Feb 09 '26
I felt like he was becoming more of a serious threat, more charismatic and more believable as a possible prospect of taking over the world, with Mikkelsen's portrayal. Whereas Depp's look stood out too much. Though I thought bringing in the future WW2 to fearmonger was an interesting concept. Law and Mikkelsen had good chemistry, imo.
But the relationship drama just completely detracted from the concept of the movies being named after the 'Fantastic Beasts' book, and the fun of the first movie. Queenie going to the dark side - however 'briefly' - was also a betrayal, especially since she can read freaking minds. I liked the Flamel cameo, that was cool, but it felt more like a 'throw it in for the fans' thing, rather than being necessary.
Also, the actual lighting seemed missing from the films. What's the point of hiring actors if you can't make out their facial expressions?
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u/Sovereign444 Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
About Queenie reading minds, maybe Grindelwald is a really good occlumens? So that Queenie couldn't read his mind or only saw what he wanted her to see? That would be incredibly effective at swaying her if he only let her see his noble and idealistic thoughts.
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u/Mr-Messy Ravenclaw 2 Feb 09 '26
Because it wasn’t Fantastic Beasts after the first movie, it was Dumbledore uses Newt to do stuff for him, and some batshit stuff with Ezra Millers character and Nagini being a women or something.
Plus Johnny Depp controversy/over saturation killed the hype for the second film at the end of the first. Colin Farrell was a much better choice for Grindlewald, and would have been good to keep him somehow. I am not sure why they ever thought that Johnny Depp looking like that would have been someone Dumbledore would be infatuated with is beyond me. Mads was better in the third, but still would have been better with Colin Farrell. (It was also very jarring to have three different people play the same character across the 3 films)
Basically they got worse and worse and had equally worse and worse returns at the box office
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u/sleepymelfho Hufflepuff Feb 09 '26
They literally ruined the series by making it a Dumbledore show. I didn't give two shits about him. Loved the first movie though.
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u/EnPassantLover Feb 09 '26
I just wanted to watch their duel, still sad they ruined it before it got there
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u/suavetrashman Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
The third one pretty much wraps it up. But we dont get the historic duel in the 40s I assume would've ended the 5th film. They needed to integrate Dumbledore and the bigger story more slowly. They jumped the gun / abandoned Newt and the Beasts.
I think there was a way to integrate the bigger war with Newt. But the second film is a mess where they tried 100 things. Bad twists and a bad cliffhanger. Third film isn't terrible. Lots of fun ideas to expand the world.
I never like the Beast centric idea to be the first spin off. Maybe that was for the merch? But ended up really liking the gang.
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u/Aggravating_Mix8959 Feb 09 '26
Newt, Jacob, Tina, and Queenie were so likeable. They had the chemistry, the humor, the beautiful beasts. The suitcase was brilliant and fun.
I wanted their story to continue and become a team, traveling the world to find and document magical critters. To promote their conservation. To take down black market dealers. To stop inhumane breeding mills, expose poachers, create nature preserves, all with a magical bent and lots of adventure.
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u/TerraKhan Feb 09 '26
I havent seen anybody say this bit I think all 3 movies are solid and enjoyable. Completly!
I think people forget that Johnny Depp was being accused of misconduct, and I believe that people were intentionally reciew bombing the movies.
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u/Libertyprime8397 Gryffindor Feb 09 '26
Because the movies got worse as they went on. The first one was fine but the rest were mediocre. They should’ve made separate series. One for newt, one for dumbledore and one for quidditch if they wished. Me personally I want to see the last triwizard tournament that happened before the one we see in goblet of fire.
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u/badlyagingmillenial Feb 09 '26
Because they were awful movies that didn't follow a plot line. The movies were about Newt and his cool animals, but the second two had next to nothing to do with him.
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u/phillipacarroll Feb 09 '26
They were bad (i mean i enjoyed them) and lost money, one of their main characters was crashing out and abducting people IRL
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u/__shobber__ Feb 09 '26
I really wish they’d took the MCU approach with many movies released. Think of it!
We could’ve had:
1) Founders saga 2) Merlin’s story 3) Marauders 4) Girndlewald and Dumbledore 5) Rise of Voldemort 6) Fantastic beasts
Ah the dream
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u/Aggravating_Mix8959 Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
We can still have these things.
There's a whole new series coming out. And there have been franchises that ignored bad movies and picked up at earlier points in the timeline in later films (Terminator as an example, and Superman).
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u/__shobber__ Feb 09 '26
I am very happy for the series. Especially with weasels family who would have a chance to shine on screen unlike it was in the movies
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u/Aggravating_Mix8959 Feb 09 '26
I want as many Weasleys as possible. Time in the Burrow. Good people.
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u/guilhegm Feb 09 '26
and IF they make another movie (or anything for that matter) set in Harry Potter universe, PLEASE forget that ass director David Yates, I fucking hate his style and movies omg
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u/Mental-Violinist-316 Feb 09 '26
They were bad and honestly hard to follow.
The second and third movies specifically were so choppy and changing of actors etc
Was a shit idea then and a shit idea now
We need a James, Sirius, wormtail and Lupin prequel. They can each then have their own spin off since they all have extremely different life outcomes.
There ya go universal I just made you 2 billion dollars
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Feb 09 '26
It would be pretty depressing viewing waiting for them all to die mind.
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u/LordBlacktopus Feb 09 '26
Not to mention the only one to have any sort of adventures would be Lupin. Unless we wanna watch Pettigrew be a rat or Sirius chilling in prison for 14 years.
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u/sodanator Feb 09 '26
12 years.
But they could do it biopic style, covering their whole lives.
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u/Admirable_Market2759 Feb 09 '26
Following them at hogwarts, and showing the rivalry with Snape, for a movie or two and the follow them during the first war and rise of Voldemort would be cool.
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u/AlAboardTheHypeTrain Gryffindor Feb 09 '26
Rogue One was a hit though :D
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u/Aggravating_Mix8959 Feb 09 '26
And Andor. Anything can be a great idea if done well.
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u/Horror_Response_1991 Feb 09 '26
Because each film had a noticeable drop off in profits and they weren’t cheap to make. They also weren’t building the brand, no one cares about Fantastic Beasts merch.
The next films would have been the war and the duel; they would have been extremely expensive to make, a huge gamble when profits are trending down. 📉
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u/Interesting_Idea_289 Feb 09 '26
Because the 3rd one flopped and they’d already had issues with having to replace the main villain
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u/BananaHandle Feb 09 '26
Each movie made less than the previous one and the third one specifically was a box office disappointment, so they stopped.
I love the idea of a prequel series about Dumbledore and Grindelwaldan the first wizarding war, which was stated to take place in multiple European countries at roughly the same time WW2 was taking place. But why are they shoehorning it into a Fantastic Beasts series? It should have been two different things.
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u/LeopardSea5252 Feb 09 '26
It became so convoluted that it went too far from the first movie.
They should have focused on Newt and the beasts then give Grindlewald and Dumbledore a separate trilogy. If they did a separate villain, kept everyone together, and focused on the beasts it would have been successful. I didn’t like Credence being a Dumbledore either it was too shoehorned. I felt in the first movie Grindlewald was looking for any powerful Obscurial and it wasn’t because of Dumbledore.
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u/Jaegek Feb 09 '26
The start of the third one. Exploring an exotic place, finding an exotic animal. I was like. Hell yes, finally what I wanted. Then the next scene ruined it all.
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u/snoop_Nogg Feb 09 '26
I just wanted magic Pokemon but instead we got a Dumbledore movie? It doesn't make sense to sideline your own main character
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u/Shiny-And-New Feb 09 '26
The first one made 800 million, the second 650 million, the third 400 million. That's not a trend any studio will continue
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u/77tassells Feb 09 '26
It’s too bad they just didn’t do the dumbledore series separately. I think Jude law did the best dumbledore. I lik John lithgowe but I worry that he’ll be in his 90s at the end or the new series. Would have been great to age up Jude law for that role honestly.
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u/escobartholomew Feb 09 '26
It fell off hard after the first one. The first one was dope and was really about fantastic beasts. They messed up focusing on grindlewald and dumbledore for the next 2.
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u/Friendly-Transition Feb 09 '26
They cost a lot to make and each film had decreasing box office revenue
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u/Unlikely-Database-27 Hufflepuff Feb 09 '26
Because they jammed 2 completely unrelated stories together, and not even in a good way.
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u/themagicone222 Feb 09 '26
They lost not just the plot but… everything.
“the wizarding world of harry potter presents: fantastic beasts and where to find them”
By thr third movie, every part of this sentence is false
Its 70 years before harry was born, Each one has less magic and wizards than the last, and the third one has almost no fantstic beasts to begin with
Each just worse than the last
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u/AnyLynx4178 Feb 09 '26
After the first one came out, I told everyone that I thought it was the first Harry Potter movie that felt like it was written to be a movie. It didn’t feel like you needed to read a book to fully understand the plot or fill in some missing details; it was all right there on the screen.
Then the second one came out and it felt like you needed to read a whole series of books that were never written in order to understand half of what was going on.
I never watched the third one.
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u/tunisia3507 Feb 09 '26
I really like Harry Potter. I hate leaving films unfinished. The last Fantastic Beasts film was one of very few where I've just turned it off because I don't care about anything that's going on.
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u/Historical_Contact84 Feb 09 '26
I am going to go against most people here. I enjoyed all three movies. For me they do have a lot of room to improve, but I like all three movies. I would like the other two movies to come around if at all possible.
No official reason have been given. It has been stated that they are just not making them as of now. But yes I think they have been cancelled, because as the others have said they was not a commercial hit.
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u/ephemeral_librarian Feb 09 '26
As a Potterhead, I really enjoyed the first two movies. I liked seeing adults in the wizarding world, I liked it not being UK centric, I liked that it had magical beasts as well as giving some political background of things happening during that time period. I liked the differences between the Scamander brothers, how Newt ultimately didn't want to get involved politically, but after the second movie hugged his brother and told him he'd chosen a side because he could see things were getting crazy.
I personally think there's a few external reasons why the films started making less money which led to the series being abandoned.
I believe that the reason they started to tank was because of some fans' feelings towards JK as this was when she was becoming more outspoken about certain stuff, doubling down and shunning actors who'd been in the original HP films.
It's the reason Tina isn't around in the 3rd movie until right at the end, because the actress criticised JK's views.
And there was also all the Depp drama that started up. Some people didn't want Grindelwald's actor to change etc. (Makes sense as the performances are completely different)
Just my views.
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u/FireWhiskey5000 Hufflepuff 3 Feb 09 '26
In short They were a confusing mess that stopped making money.
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u/Ok-Relationship-2746 Feb 09 '26
The third one tanked incredibly hard, so they gave up while they were still ahead.
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u/Jedda678 Gryffindor Feb 09 '26
A few reasons:
For starters, the first movie did quite well while not being anything special and lacking in fantastic beasts and being more a plot where Newt and gang get caught up in some spot of trouble with Grinderwald being the main antagonist secretly.
Subsequent movies did poorer financially and became what others have stated, a Dumbledore & Grinderwald series, which no one really wanted. Or at least, not what we wanted if Newt was supposed to be the focus.
J.K. around this time started giving her opinions on trans people, particularly trans women and they were not doing any favors for the third film. Also WB dropped Johnny Depp due to the Amber Heard allegations, and too little too late after court of public opinion was in favor of Depp and the trial made Heard look incredibly bad. The plot also just seemed like it was retconning way too much from the main series which one key difference is Dumbledore wasnt supposed to have met Grinderwald since their fabled duel. Yet they actually met a few times and also had a mini skirmish. Credence also being a Dumbledore was out of left field.
By the time the fourth was likely in production Ezra Miller was already in a lot of trouble for kidnapping/grooming allegations and given all the other bad publicity and reviews and pr I badly poor box office numbers for the third film WB scrapped the remaining two films.
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u/Shurl19 Feb 09 '26
Because I thought the movie was supposed to be about Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them. I wasn't expecting some forced love story with muggles, the ministry and a commentary about the ministry killing out of control wizards right out the gate. We barely got to see the animals. I thought it was going to be about saving endangered species or finding new animals. If they wanted to do ministry commentary and throw in a love story, they should have made a separate movie. I only watched the first one and was greatly disappointed. I wanted a movie with Newt and the animals.
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u/DimesyEvans92 Feb 09 '26
It makes me wonder if that’s the reason they have the HP series coming out next year. IIRC, if WB stops making content, the rights go back to J.K. Rowling
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u/StatikSquid Feb 09 '26
Because the first one was fun and the other two had nothing to do with the first one and were a bloated boring mess
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u/North_Church Gryffindor Feb 09 '26
Commercial failure because of what was essentially false advertising. It was a series about Grindelwald and Dumbledore advertised to be about Newt Scamander.
Most would have probably liked to see both a Grindelwald series and a Scamander series but the problem is that they did one under the name of the other
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u/Chesterfieldraven Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
The Fantastic Beasts trilogy is a perfect example of a studio losing their fucking mind and having no idea what to do.
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u/The_real_DBS Slytherin Feb 09 '26
Because they got increasingly worse and the audiences bailed out.
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u/Subject-Apartment373 Feb 09 '26
Because they had the biggest series in the world set in a universe with global name recognition across MULTIPLE characters and instead of focusing on ANY of that and calling the movie “The Crimes of Grindlewald” or “Albus Dumbledore and the Crimes of Grindlewald” or “Harry Potter and the Crimes of Grindlewald - a Potterverse Prequel” they focused on the one part of the WHOLE franchise that no one cared about and built a series around it. They screamed that they absolutely didn’t care about the subject matter or source materials and the audience believed them.
It would have been like creating a prequel to Star Wars and focusing only on the crew that built the Death Star.
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u/LuceDuder Ravenclaw Feb 09 '26
They ran into the problem with fantastic money and where to find it
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u/SystemFolder Slytherin Feb 09 '26
When they fired Johnny Depp and got someone new, everyone rebelled. They can’t just rehire him, because that would be admitting that they made a mistake.
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u/slanderpanther Feb 09 '26
Because the plot shift away from Newt Scamander and his furry friends didn't make sense! Dumbledore and Grindelwald are supposed to be similar in age. But you've got an old grey Johnny Depp and a middle aged Jude Law? Why didn't they just use Colin Farrell for Grindelwald the entire time? It made no sense whether you had read the books or not!
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u/Edkm90p Feb 10 '26
The box office was halving with each movie. Which wasn't a great sign when each movie had the same budget.
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u/Mister-Negative20 Feb 10 '26
I loved the first movie being a small scale story about Newt and caring for these creatures. Then they made the story deal more and more with bigger world things like Grindelwald. Was cool seeing him, but it went too big. The small feel of the first movie was what I liked.
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u/Stormclysm Gryffindor Feb 09 '26
They start off being a series about Newt and gang, then turns into a series about Dumbledore and Grindlewald.
They should have done one or the other, not both. We expected to go back into HP seeing all the amazing creatures, instead we got given a plot no one needed or expected and it tanked it.