Fantastic Beasts 3: What Went Wrong?

6. The Johnny Depp, Ezra Miller, And J.K. Rowling Controversies

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Ezra Miller as Credence
Warner Bros. Pictures

You have to feel a little bit sorry for The Secrets of Dumbledore due to the sheer amount of behind-the-scenes drama surrounding it, all of which is out of the filmmakers' control.

Since the Fantastic Beasts franchise began in 2016, two of its biggest stars have become embroiled in real-life controversies, with Ezra Miller physically assaulting a woman in early 2020, and later being arrested for a completely different incident in March 2022 - right before The Secrets of Dumbledore's release.

Elsewhere, Johnny Depp lost a libel case in late 2020 and was subsequently asked to leave the franchise by Warner Bros., who replaced him with Mads Mikkelsen. Depp is currently involved in a defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard, and the outcome will most likely decide if he has a future in Hollywood or not.

And then there's J.K. Rowling herself, whose various political views have made her a divisive figure over the last couple of years, with wizarding world actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne even speaking out against her.

No matter where you stand on these issues, they undoubtedly hurt The Secrets of Dumbledore, damaging the film's reputation before anyone had even seen it.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!