Even Harry Potter Fans Want Fantastic Beasts Dead and Gone
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, counting its two sequels, is almost a textbook example of a prequel/spin-off that fails to live up to the original franchise.
Not that any of these movies were outright flops, but with each new installment the box office diminished, and the critical reception got colder.
Sadly, having J.K. Rowling on board as a writer did not help, not because she lacked talent and passion, but mostly because she has failed to understand the tremendous difference between writing books and writing scripts for movies or TV series, where you cannot rely on character perspective and have much sharper constraints – some authors, like George RR Martin, are skilled at both, but Rowling is apparently not among them.
Even though the spin-off was originally supposed to span five movies, as of now, it seems there are no plans for Fantastic Beasts 4. Their star, Eddie Redmayne (playing Newt Scamander) said recently in an interview when asked if he knows what's next for the franchise:
"I don't. It's more a question for J. K. Rowling and David Yates and Warners, but I don't know, I'm afraid. I can't add to that."
On the other hand, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav mentioned a possibility of further cooperation with J.K. Rowling on more movies set in the Wizarding World. One thing that is certain for now is lack of any new Harry Potter- related movies in development.
Whether the Fantastic Beasts movie series is really done for, or not, may be still unclear. However, it is clear that the Harry Potter fanbase is unlikely to miss the spin-off much, judging by the initial reactions.
Popular opinion voiced about Fantastic Beasts included a number of accusations. Such as being just a nostalgia-baiting cashgrab, created merely because Harry Potter movies made so much money, that the studio wanted to keep the franchise going after all the books from the main series were adapted.
Or pushing characters from Fantastic Beasts into plots where they absolutely didn't belong. Or lack of direction. The most complementary one among the upvoted opinions amounts to "the first Fantastic Beasts was good, but everything became a trainwreck once the following movies turned into a Young Dumbledore story".
Whether this unfortunate spin-off series is salvageable at all, and whether Warner Bros. would attempt to salvage it, remains to be seen, but if they have someone tracking the fan reactions to the news, the answer to the latter question is likely to be "No".