10 Movie Franchise Staples Nobody Actually Cares About

8. Johnny Depp's Casting - Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them

Eyebrows were firmly raised when Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them concluded with the shock reveal that franchise villain Gellert Grindelwald had been hiding in plain sight the entire movie - disguised as Colin Farrell's Percival Graves - and was now going to be played by...Johnny Depp.

It's a choice which flummoxed fans for several reasons: for starters, Farrell did a fantastic job as Graves, and few would've complained if he ended up playing Grindelwald also.

Furthermore, general audiences had grown weary of Depp's penchant for soulless mugging by this point, and it didn't help that his villain's bizarre appearance made him impossible to take seriously.

In fairness, Depp wasn't the worst thing about last year's sequel, The Crimes of Grindelwald, but it was still tough to escape the feeling that Warner Bros. really dropped the ball by insisting upon Depp's insertion into the franchise.

This is unaided by the actor's recent personal controversies, which have seen many call for Grindelwald to be re-cast once again.

Warner Bros. execs are meanwhile reportedly "freaking out" about J.K. Rowling publicly expressing her support for the actor (and possibly boxing them into a corner creatively as a result).

At least these movies are filled with enough supernatural hooey that the delayed third film could conceivably re-cast Grindelwald once more, and it'd certainly inspire no less apathy than simply bringing Depp back for three more sequels (!) of hammy yet joyless moustache-twirling.