There was much uproar among the Johnny Depp fandom when the actor was unceremoniously booted from the Fantastic Beasts franchise and replaced with Mads Mikkelsen, who ironically turned out to be one of the highlights of the otherwise-underwhelming third installment The Secrets of Dumbledore.
The middle chapter of the planned five-film saga was viewed as the make-or-break moment for the Wizarding World prequel series, and David Yates’ latest magical blockbuster repaid that pressure by barely scraping past $400 million at the box office to become the lowest-grossing entry in the long-running series by some distance.
Fantastic Beasts 4 hasn’t been given an official green light as of yet, but most people would be expecting Mikkelsen to return as Grindelwald. However, the actor admitted to Deadline that there’s always a chance his predecessor could come back, having emerged victorious in the courtroom opposite Amber Heard.
“It was very intimidating. Obviously, well, now the course has changed—he won the suit, the court [case]—so let’s see if he comes back. He might. I’m a big fan of Johnny. I think he’s an amazing actor, I think he did a fantastic job. Having said that, I could not copy it. There’s there was no way I could just copy it, because it’s so much him. It would be creative suicide. So, we had to come up with something else, something that was mine, and build a bridge between him and me. So, yes, it was intimidating. His fans were very, very sweet, but they were also very stubborn. I didn’t interact too much with them, but I could understand why they had their hearts broken.”
If Depp is refusing to even consider Pirates of the Caribbean, we’d feel safe in saying Mikkelsen should be safe as Grindelwald, but that’s if Fantastic Beasts 4 even ends up happening.