A year ago, Fantastic Beasts’ production was going in full flow and Warner Bros. Pictures was doing (relatively) well. Even a few months back, we were talking about a reboot for the Harry Potter franchise in the form of a live-action series. Now, one of the biggest pandemics the world has ever seen has come and is taking its time leaving, one of the main cast of the Fantastic Beasts have been replaced, the live action series has not been approved – merely been suggested, and the woman who started it all – J.K. Rowling has been heavily hit by the transgender community and its supports for her tweets about them, which were made around 8 months ago.
The Harry Potter film franchise has raked in a collective box office of over USD 7.7 billion against a budget of USD 1.2 billion, making it third most successful film franchise of all time. This beloved book series turned film franchise has an avid following around the world and has multiple theme parks around the globe. So it is safe to say that “The Wizarding World” franchise is not dying anytime soon, even if their creator is labeled as “transphobic” by some.
But with the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard controversy rearing its ugly head and Warner Bros. Pictures stuck right in the middle of it since both actors were working with the studios (Depp for the Fantastic Beasts franchise and Heard in Aquaman), it has not been looking good for the production company giant. Even Though Amber Heard will still continue to be part of Aquaman’s sequel production, Depp was asked to step down from his role and he did it without making any noise about it.
Mads Mikkelsen will play the role of Grindelwald, and although he might be actually more perfect for the role than Depp was, there are rumors that this upcoming Fantastic Beasts film will be the last one in the franchise. This franchise is expected to be a five part movie series, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Warner Bros. Pictures wanted to end it prematurely and create another film or tv franchise later on, once things have calmed down. But these are just rumors and we will have to wait for now to get any real announcements about the matter.
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