Any new entry into the Wizarding World is a big deal, but the upcoming Fantastic Beasts 3 is under massive pressure to succeed. The spinoff series got off to a solid start, but swiftly found itself on shaky ground with second outing The Crimes of Grindelwald. Not only did it become the first movie to receive overwhelmingly negative reviews from both fans and critics, but box office takings also dropped by well over $150 million.
Shooting on the third pic had already been pushed back in order to fine-tune the script long before the Coronavirus pandemic arrived, but there’s now even more scrutiny being placed on Newt Scamander’s return. After all, Warner Bros. are committed to making five of these fantasy blockbusters, and there will have no doubt been concern over the steep decline in the critical and commercial performance with three still to go.
Not only that, but whenever Fantastic Beasts 3 does hit theaters, there’s every chance that fans could call for a boycott after creator and screenwriter J.K. Rowling has been finding herself coming in for heavy criticism due to airing some controversial opinions. That’s without even mentioning stars Ezra Miller and Johnny Depp, who have spent plenty of time in the headlines for the wrong reasons recently.
Fantastic Beasts 3 still hasn’t shifted from the originally announced November 2021 release date, even though there was little news on when production would officially start, and leading man Eddie Redmayne has now revealed that shooting kicked off two weeks ago in London, with all of the requisite safety protocols in place.
“It’s a whole new normal. Testing frequently, masks. And I wondered, actually, whether the masks would affect creativity, in some ways. Maybe that was a bit ignorant, but I just thought, as humans, do we need interaction to spark from each other. What is really reassuring is that it is a different process, but it still feels like it’s fizzing and that everyone is working at the top of their game.”
At the moment, there unfortunately isn’t an abundance of enthusiasm surrounding Fantastic Beasts 3, with director David Yates desperately needing to freshen things up on what marks his seventh consecutive Wizarding World movie. But nonetheless, it’ll be interesting to see how things turn out as this next installment could potentially make or break the future of the entire spinoff series.