Warner Bros. Apparently Wants Us to Forget Fantastic Beasts Exists
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav seems to ignore the Fantastic Beasts franchise, which makes fans wonder whether Fantastic Beasts 4 and 5 are even happening.
David Zaslav said on Discovery's Q3 earnings call that Warner Bros. will focus on franchises. Among big names like Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Superman, DC universe, and The Lord of the Rings, Zaslav emphasized Harry Potter and said that the studio would be interested to do "something with J.K. [Rowling] on Harry Potter going forward."
At the same time, Zaslav mentioned that Warner Bros. "haven't done a Harry Potter movie in 15 years" which created an uproar among Wizarding World fans.
First, the fans wonder how Zaslav has gotten so bad at Math. The latest installment in the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows II, premiered in July 2011 which makes the movie 11 years old.
At the same time, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in the Autumn of 2001, 21 years ago, so Zaslav's calculations can't be right. Besides, fans wonder why Discovery CEO totally ignored the Fantastic Beasts franchise, which is supposed to have two more installments in the future, according to J.K. Rowling. So does Zaslav leaving Fantastic Beasts out mean that the franchise will be canceled?
Warner Bros. certainly has several reasons to make that decision, and they coincide with the opinions of some Wizarding World fans. While Fantastic Beast happens in the Harry Potter universe, it failed to gain the same impact the original franchise had.
Viewers think that the main issue with Fantastic Beast is its duality. What started with Newt Scamander's magical adventures unexpectedly took a darker turn to Dumbledore and Grindelwald's confrontation. While they are both good concepts, fans believe that they don't seem to work together.
It doesn't help that the franchise is surrounded by behind-the-scenes drama. Ezra Miller, Johnny Depp, and J.K. Rowling have made too many headlines recently. At last, Zaslav made it clear that Warner Bros. strategy is profit-centric, which disadvantages Fantastic Beast with each new installment performing worse than the previous and all the parts making much fewer profits than the Harry Potter franchise.
With no official announcements made, it seems that neither viewers nor the studio has any idea whether Fantastic Beast 4 and 5 are happening. In any case, Fans hope that Warner Bros. will not decide to adapt the hated Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a next step in cashing in on Harry Potter.