I think it's time for one of these threads.

Fantastic Beasts hasn't crossed $600m WW yet, and it's already slowed down considerably domestic and abroad. Domestic it has been freefalling since OW and it only made $11m overseas this weekend. Next week it faces the one two three punch of Mary Poppins, Aquaman and Bumblebee which cover all its target demos.

Basically, $650m isn't happening. With a $200m budget and who knows how much in marketing, it's a borderline flop. And this is a film meant to produce three (!) sequels.

So what went wrong?

Many things. But it just ain't Harry Potter. You can fool people once. The first did well, but this franchise just isn't exciting, and WB have failed to conjure any pre-release buzz. This franchise is one of the many franchises still going that believes/hopes it is in another decade.

It's really in a position where it can only bleed fans. It's pretty steep in lore, and heavy on "making up complicated terms", which is going to lock out the casuals. The appeal to the diehards has been diluted by trying to do two things at once--it's not fully about a Indiana Jonesesque wizard exploring the Wizarding World beyond Hogwarts because they're caught up in Grindelwar, but it's not really about Dumbledore kicking ass in his younger days because he's supporting character. I also think people kind of dislike the two leads?

Bad word of mouth. It would have done similar numbers to the first otherwise.

But the whole franchise was ill advised. If they had advertised it as the Dumbledore vs Grindelwald Story it obviously wants to be from the start, the first film would have grossed 300m+ and a sequel could afford a harsh drop. But it was barely connected to Potter, and thus barely hit 200m domestic.

The third is going to do sub 150 definitely. It needs to be a great movie if they want to avoid this whole thing having been an embarrassment.

Crimes of Grindlewald is a really inaccessible film. If you're not familar with HP lore why would you give a **** about who Credence is related to?

Boring as fuck. Like the hobbit prequels

Having not seen either film, the writer of the Fantastic Beasts book was an interesting idea... for a one-off film. Trying to make a 5 film series about him is a reach, and therefore they have to shift the focus to this Dumbledore backstory.

They seriously fucked up not just making this series with Dumbledore as the protagonist from the start. Following the Hobbit and Star Wars prequels they would have been printing money one way or the other. They should consider dropping Newt or making him a side character and just naming the third film Dumbledore and the __________

Dreadfully boring. I liked the first one well enough but I hated this one. A complete mess and did not care what was happening - I never check the time during a movie but I did with this one. I just kept waiting for it to be over. This franchise is going to go the way of Narnia.

I haven't seen any of the Fantastic Beasts movies, but could they potentially shift the focus over to Harry Potter's parents or something (moving Newt into more of a supporting role)? Is there any story worth telling that wasn't already explored in the core series?

I'm sure there is, but they haven't told it yet.

Seriously the series went wrong by only hinting at the wizarding world. Who gives a shit about a baker and the dam I don't even remember the 2nd film. This is Narnia all over again. Which is a shame. Everything Harry Potterish related works.

Bottom line is simply this: It's not for kids and it's not not good enough for the ones that grew up. It has it's Hobbit shrapnel but even that won't be enough. Scamander is just not good for a second movie. This had to be Dumbledore centric.

Didn't they plan 5 of these? That was the first mistake WB made.

Yes there are 5 of these planned now and WB still seems keen to go with it. As for this franchise as a whole its not done anything to build its own identity. They succeeded a little with last one because of the core-group of 4 (IMO) and that is not seen even once in Part 2 which made the movie dire and the shock factor with one of the core group members was definitely not well received by me (and many fans; from what I read online). Addition of Dumbledore was a good idea but they still needed him to be guiding or joining the group. This is the age where audience prefer families, team building and having split the group in this movie didn't help it. Perhaps they should add Dumbledore as the leader for next with 5 of them working together.

So this closed with $159 million.

That's less than The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

This franchise is so effed unless they find a way to renew interest. There’s not much room to go down with number 3.