10 Upcoming Movies That Are Trying To Win Back Fans
3. Fantastic Beasts 3
How It Lost Fans
The first Fantastic Beasts movie was a solid addition to the Harry Potter universe, introducing a whole new cast of characters, a brand-new setting, and a plethora of intriguing and adorable (Niffler, we're looking at you) magical creatures.
Sadly, followup The Crimes of Grindelwald was a dull mess, complicating Potter lore with a strange twist and some apparent timeline issues, and because it had "Fantastic Beasts" in the title, it had to include roles for Newt, Jacob, and the rest of the gang, who have nothing to do with the story of Grindelwald and Dumbledore that J.K. Rowling clearly wants to tell.
It went on to become the lowest-grossing Wizarding World movie ever, as well as the worst-reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes, by quite a large margin.
How It's Trying To Win Them Back
The third film was originally scheduled for a late 2020 release, two years after its predecessor. But that's no longer the case. The film will now come out in 2021 instead, a delay that was clearly inspired by the backlash against The Crimes of Grindelwald, even if nobody involved will ever admit that.
By giving themselves an extra year, the filmmakers (especially Rowling) have more time to work on the story, and will hopefully be able to pull this messy narrative together in a coherent fashion.
But the primary reason to be more optimistic about Fantastic Beasts 3 is the fact that Steve Kloves will be joining Rowling as a co-writer. Kloves wrote seven Harry Potter movies but did not work on the Fantastic Beasts films, so hopefully his seasoned hands can help turn Rowling's ambition into a well-structured and paced script.