All along, Warner Bros. has said the plan for the Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them franchise is a five movie saga. This week’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is the third chapter of that grand scheme, following the original film and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. But given The Secrets of Dumbledore’s box office, you have to wonder if that original plan will be carried out to completion.

That’s because The Secrets of Dumbledore debuted at the box office with just $43 million in ticket sales in the United States, by far the worst total in either the Fantastic Beasts series or the Harry Potter franchise which inspired it. True, the pandemic has generally hurt box office totals across the board, but Fantastic Beasts is supposed to be the kind of enormous tentpole that people will still come out to see in theaters, like the Marvel franchise or the Fast & Furious pictures. At least this time, it did not do its job.

Here’s how The Secrets of Dumbledore compares with every opening weekend in the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies; as you can see it barely made a quarter of what the final Harry Potter grossed in one weekend in 2011, despite the fact that it still cost a reported $200 million to produce:

  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - $169.1 million
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 - $125.0 million
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - $102.6 million
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - $93.6 million
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - $90.2 million
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - $88.3 million
43. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Warner Bros.
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  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - $77.8 million
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - $77.1 million
  • Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - $74.4 million
  • Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - $62.1 million
  • Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore - $43 million

According to Deadline, there is some uncertainty about Harry Potter’s movie future. They write that there are “no concrete pans immediately” for a new Potter movie, and the much-publicized Harry Potter HBO Max series still has no writers attached. There also isn’t a script for a fourth Fantastic Beasts yet, despite that five-movie plan. I’m no wizard, but if I had to could into the future, I sincerely doubt I would see two more Fantastic Beasts there; I think either a reboot or some kind of movie set in Hogwarts and much more in the style of the original Potters would make a lot more sense.

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