Fantastic Beasts 3 is make or break for this offshoot of the Wizarding World. The 2016 original was a huge hit and expectations were high for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. But it was here that the franchise stumbled, with critics highlighting the needlessly complicated plot and audiences staying away, resulting in it ending up as the lowest-grossing film in the Harry Potter universe to date.
This leaves the upcoming third movie with a big hill to climb, which is not exactly helped by the recent controversial comments made by author J.K. Rowling that have seen many of her fans turn on her. But Warner Bros. sound like they’re pulling out all the stops in an effort to turn things around.
It remains to be seen if they’ll be able to do so, but as filming gets ready to resume shortly, star Dan Fogler, who plays Jacob Kowalski, has now revealed that he’s undergone a dramatic physical transformation for the role. In an interview with Lauren Francesca, he said that over the course of the lockdown he’s dropped a lot of weight.
“I did intermittent fasting and I hit 40 and my body was like, my metabolism was thrown out the fucking window. I had to stop eating foods that were processed. All I was eating was processed. So I had to really balance that out with actual food food. And that was really the first 60 pounds that came off. Eliminating soda, bread, shit like that. Dairy. You know I love pizza. I was living on pizza.”
He went on to explain that if you watch the series, you’ll see him gradually lose weight over the movies, saying:
“I was 270 lbs at my heaviest. That was documented in the first Fantastic Beasts film. That was my heaviest. Then, I started losing weight, so by the second Fantastic Beasts film I lost 20-30 pounds. Then, uh, over two years I had lost about 100 pounds. So it was crazy. Right now, I’m about 195 so I’m down about 75 pounds, it’s crazy.”
It remains to be seen whether this will be a plot point, but given that Fantastic Beasts 3 will be set during World War II, perhaps his character will have enlisted to fight the Nazis and have trimmed down a bit in basic training. With the film delayed due to the Coronavirus and the shoot only now resuming though, it’ll be a while before we can know for sure. But if you want a preview of the new Fogler in the meantime, he recently showed up on The Walking Dead, where fans noticed that his appearance was quite different. Let’s just hope he’s given a lot to do in Fantastic Beasts 3, as it’s nice to see a non-magical character in a prominent position in the plot.
Right now, the film is scheduled for a February 2021 release, but I think that’s a bit optimistic. As always, though, watch this space for further updates.
