When audiences packed into theaters late last year to watch The Crimes of Grindelwald, Potterheads the world over were left pretty underwhelmed by David Yates’ star-studded prequel.
A combination of weak dialogue and bloated storytelling meant that Fantastic Beasts 2.0 struggled to leave much of a mark on critics and audiences alike. In fact, some even feel that the film only exists solely to pad the five-part spinoff series, which continues next year with Fantastic Beasts 3.
At the moment, it remains to be seen whether the franchise can bounce back with a truly compelling threequel, but the studio certainly feels confident that it can. Speaking to The LA Times this week, Warner Bros. chief executive of film and TV studio, Kevin Tsujihara promised that they’re going to get things right.
“The second film didn’t perform as well as the first, but I think we know what we need to do to get the third film hopefully even better than the first one. And J.K. Rowling is really working hard now on that third script, and we’re going to get it right. She has an incredible vision of where she wants to go with this that is incredibly exciting.”
Continuing on, Tsujihara also touched on some of the difficulties that come along with producing a franchise such as this one, saying:
“The hardest part of the franchise is you have such a big core fan base. That fan base really knows the lore and they want to go deep into these characters. But what you don’t want to do is intimidate people. You want to be able to create a stand-alone movie that’s enjoyable for someone who isn’t steeped in the lore.”
Clearly, there’s the general feeling that Warner Bros. absolutely has to improve things with Fantastic Beasts 3. Otherwise, the entire series could fall flat on its face. How exactly they’ll turn the ship around remains to be seen, of course, but with J.K. Rowling’s screenplay being an issue with the last film, perhaps they’ve been in conference with her and (no doubt delicately) asked her to give it another pass?
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what the studio has planned for us with Fantastic Beasts 3, but in the meantime, tell us, how do you think they can improve things with the next outing in the series? As always, you can sound off down below with your thoughts.
