the magical world of Harry Potter seemed like a safe bet when Warner gave the green light to a prequel called to be divided into five installments. The third, ‘Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets’, arrived in theaters very recently, but right now there are reasonable doubts about the possibility that the fourth will not be made.
A constant headache for Warner
The diminishing box office performance of the saga -already ‘The crimes of Grindelwald’ gave clear symptoms of exhaustion and ‘The secrets of Dumbledore’ has only served to confirm it- is one of the reasons, but it is that the controversies accumulate to Warner Y in the study they may come to the conclusion that it is not worth their while to go ahead with it.
one) The transphobia accusations against JK Rowling. The image of the creator of ‘Harry Potter’ suffered a severe blow in June 2020, being accused of transphobia for a comment What did you do on twitter? Your messages later, a theme that has resurfaced on multiple occasions and has led to her involvement in the premiere of ‘Dumbledore’s Animals’ being minimal, but also to making part of the public suspicious of anything associated with her. Even some actors in the saga have shown their rejection of Rowling’s opinions.
two) The march of Johnny Depp. Already at the time there was a certain division of opinion around the signing of Depp to give life to Grindelwald, but his was a controversial divorce from Amber Heard which triggered everything, especially when he accused him of different abuses. The legal battle continues, but already at the end of 2020 he announced his departure from the saga, being replaced shortly after by Mads Mikkelsen. There are not a few who have missed the protagonist of ‘Ed Wood’.
3) The erratic attitude of Ezra Miller. The actor, who also collaborates with Warner giving life to Flash in the Extended Universe of DC, has starred in several altercations. The study ignored the first, but this year he accumulates several, including an arrest in Hawaii and a restraining order for his behavior precisely with the couple who paid his bail. That led to reports that all of his projects with the DCEU were stalled. In the saga that concerns us, its importance is minor, but obviously this does not help anything.
4) The bad press surrounding the saga. The bad reviews don’t help, but it was the decision to agree to censor ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ in China to remove dialogue that directly alluded to Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s homosexuality that added more problems. And it is that in addition to being a controversial movement, it has made it clear that they had not bet so much on that issue either when with removing just 6 seconds, there is hardly a trace of it.
From Variety they already dropped that For now there is no script for ‘Fantastic Beasts 4’ and that Warner is waiting to see how ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ finally works at the box office to decide, but from the studio they have not wanted to comment on it. What does seem clear is that the future of the franchise hangs in the balance.