Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was a box office hit when it was released in 2016, earning positive reviews and heaps of praise from Harry Potter fans. Unfortunately, the franchise took a step backwards with The Crimes of Grindelwald, a mostly awful sequel that shifted focus to Albus Dumbledore's complicated family history.
While The Secrets of Dumbledore was a minor improvement, the majority of moviegoers had lost interest by that stage, and the movie simply wasn't good enough to guarantee the story will continue.
The original plan was for the stories of Newt Scamander, Albus Dumbledore, and Gellert Grindelwald to play out over five movies, but even a fourth chapter seems unlikely now. That means this tale will potentially never get a definitive ending, and star Eddie Redmayne seems similarly doubtful about the franchise's future.
IndieWire (via SFFGazette.com) asked him if he knows anything about Fantastic Beasts 4 and the actor replied, "I don’t. It’s more a question for J. K. Rowling and David Yates and Warners, but I don’t know, I’m afraid. I can’t add to that. I love playing Newt, he’s a sweet man."
Sadly, Newt has been sidelined for the most part since that first outing and no longer feels like the star of his own franchise. That may explain why Redmayne seems pretty nonplussed about where things go from here, though it's clear Warner Bros.' decision to shift focus to familiar faces and locales isn't having the desired effect.
The charm of that first movie has been lost as the series has progressed, with fantastic beasts shoehorned in as little more than an afterthought. It's a real pity, and with J.K. Rowling becoming an increasingly controversial figure among some people online, we wouldn't be shocked if the Harry Potter franchise as a whole is sidelined for a while moving forward.
Would you like the Fantastic Beasts franchise to continue? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
About The Author:
Comic Book Reader. Film Lover. WWE and F1 Fan. Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and ComicBookMovie.com's #1 contributor.