Where has the magic of the Harry Potter franchise gone? While watching Fantastics Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore I couldn’t help but think about what happened to the franchise that millions of kids, including myself, fell in love with. By no means was the movie horrible, visually it was stunning and the characters are likable. So considering that Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore has made $250 Million dollars less than its predecessor, and $400 million less than the first entry in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, why is the Wizarding World franchise that once ruled the box office, failing to attract people like it used to?
Could it be because of the controversy surrounding JK Rowling or Johnny Depp? Maybe. But I have a feeling it runs deeper than that. Yes, the controversies surrounding JK Rowling and Johnny Depp have negatively impacted the brand, but it is not the sole reason why the franchise has tanked.
In my opinion, what the Fantastic Beasts franchise lacks from the Harry Potter franchise is that Fantastic Beasts has not been able to find its footing. Even though Harry Potter had a long arching plot spanning 8 films, each movie was able to have a beginning, middle, and end to every single book/film. However, the Fantastic Beasts franchise has not been able to succeed in telling a singular story through the course of a single film. What made the first movie successful, both at the box office and the critics, was that it was able to invite viewers to a new world and tell an interesting, complete story. Whereas for Crimes of Grindelwald and Secrets of Dumbledore, both films felt like a continuous exposition to something bigger.
In my opinion both films had good, compelling stories that expanded the wizarding world, but rather than a theatrical rollout, they would have been much better suited for a limited series on a streaming service, like HBO Max. The Fantastic Beasts franchise does contain some of the magic that the Harry Potter franchise created, but the stories are too long and drawn out to succeed in the box office. People love a good, long story but not when it takes multiple years just to see what feels like the beginning of the story. What made the Harry Potter franchise so successful was that it was able to tell complete stories with every film, while not excluding the overarching plot. The Fantastic Beasts franchise could have been successful, but only in a series format. The screenwriters wrote compelling stories, but they were too long and bloated to succeed in a theatrical rollout. After two box office flops it might be too late to salvage the franchise, but regardless if the Fantastic Beasts franchise continues, the performance of the last two films does provide great insight for the Warner Brothers team when they eventually try to expand the Wizarding World.
UPDATE: WITH HBO MAX'S NEW OF CREATING A HARRY POTTER REBOOT SERIES BE SURE TO READ MY FOLLOW UP PIECE REGARDING THE FUTURE OF THE WIZARDING WORLD.
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