10 Things Hotly Anticipated Films Need To Get Right In 2016

5. Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them Needs To Find The Right Tone (And A Decent Plot)

It would be a lie to say that the world hasn't been desperate to return to the Harry Potter universe ever since the release of 2011's Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2. The Harry Potter film series was consistently better than any franchise that long really has any right to be, and it captured the hearts and minds of audiences around the world. At last, then, fans have got the opportunity to go back once more. Directed by David Yates, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them tells the story of Newt Scamander, and the escape of a bunch of magical beasties. But the film has a few obstacles to traverse if it doesn't want to disappoint. For a start, it needs to have a decent story. Easy, you might think €“ surely it's based on a novel by J.K. Rowling? Well, technically yes, but the novel is just over one-hundred pages long, was written for charity and features absolutely no narrative, just a bunch of descriptions about magic creatures. Firstly, then, the film needs to prove that it can tell a worthy story. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy had narrative-based source material to work from, and look how that turned out. Secondly, the film needs to find a coherent tone. Towards the end of the Harry Potter series, the films grew increasingly darker in tone. There were several reasons for this: the characters were older and less innocent, Voldemort's threat was graver, and the chance of success seemed to diminish further and further. But the tone of the trailer for Fantastic Beasts is almost as sombre as the latter Potter films, and all we really know about the plot is that a bunch of strange creatures break free from a magical case. Right now, the plot just doesn't align with the trailer's serious tone.