The thing about the Harry Potter franchise is that even when it underperforms, that doesn’t ruin the star power behind it. Crimes of Grindelwald may have not been as successful in the U.S./U.K. in terms of box office or critical response, but the majority of fans enjoyed it, and longtime Potterheads, even with their concerns, still want to check out the series. Hence we have Fantastic Beasts 3, because despite it all, the film made a total worldwide gross of $652.8 million, against a production budget of $200 million.
Dan Fogler, the actor who plays Jacob Kowalski in the Fantastic Beasts series, spoke with Hey U Guys about the reason for the delays in the third movie (out of five total) and what’s going on next:
“Yeah, we start in the Fall. The movie is going to be gigantic!
“The reason we were given is that the movie is bigger than the first two combined. They needed more time to prep and they didn’t want to rush anything so they pushed it back.
“I can tell you that we are going to Brazil. I don’t really know much…[laughs]. I’ll get a script closer to when we start shooting.”
This movie is going to be bigger than the first two movies combined, which sounds like a really adventurous decision. One of the major problems with Crimes of Grindelwald, ignoring all the social issues, was that it was really bloated. There were several storylines that needed long series of exposition, and it all sort of led into one big journey to nowhere.
I think one of the things that worked so well about the Harry Potter series, and even the first Fantastic Beasts, is having one major location that could be the focus of the story. Hogwarts was the major location for most of the books, save for the seventh, and it serves as a safe place for the story to remain grounded.
Jerking all around to different places to pick up clues would be one thing if it were just an action-adventure movie akin to something like National Treasure, but this is Harry Potter, and the magic of the universe isn’t just things; it’s the emotional character journey on the way to building the story. Harry Potter’s world is imperfect, but it works because we love the story and the characters.
Whatever comes next in Fantastic Beasts, my hope is that it’ll focus on its core four rather than keep bloating its cast to the point where the most interesting things are seeing Hogwarts and trying to figure out if that’s really Professor McGonagall or her mom, and if that even makes sense.
As for the fact that part of the story is going to take place in Brazil … okay. I know that Pottermore has had an article about Castelobruxo, which is the Brazilian school for magic that takes students from all over South America … which people have already pointed out doesn’t really make sense, especially since South America is made up of 12 countries and speaks over nine languages, so one South American school is ridiculous. We will see if they do better about addressing those issues in the movie.
Anyway, Fantastic Beasts 3 is happening what would you like to see addressed and how many secret siblings will we get?
(via Hey U Guys, image: Warner Bros.)
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