The freshly released Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was the highest-grossing film on Vudu last weekend, according to the company. The precursor threequel, written by J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves, is towards the top of the different VOD platforms (Amazon, iTunes, Google, Vudu, and YouTube), and is accessible “for free” on HBO Max. More crucially, the global box office for David Yates’ Fantastic Beasts 3 surpassed $400 million this past weekend. That doesn’t make the $200 million film a box office success. Terminator: Genysis, Alita: Battle Angel, The Mummy, and Warcraft, which earned less than $100 million domestically but more than $400 million internationally, weren’t hits either).
The Secrets of Dumbledore’s last reel brought closure to the film’s main protagonists (Newt, Tina, Jacob, and Queenie), although the Dumbledore against Grindelwald struggle continued “offscreen.” I’m not sure if an HBO Max series featuring what this series should have been about in the first place, namely that quartet running around the world finding and helping magical creatures, has any value beyond initial curiosity, but it’s a possibility if David Zaslav wants to get some more “Wizarding World” content up and running for the streaming platform as soon as possible. Regardless, Fantastic Beasts and where to find them should be made into a cinematic series.
Three (Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Uncharted) came from Sony, three (F9, No Time to Die, and Sing 2) came from Universal, two (Top Gun: Maverick and Sonic 2) came from Paramount, and three (Shang-Chi, Eternals, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) came from Disney. Only one of WB’s four films (The Batman) was a comic book superhero picture, whereas Sony had one, Universal had three, Paramount had two, and Disney had none. Despite all of Zaslov’s rhetoric of turning Warner Bros. Discovery into the new Disney, Disney’s theatrical and streaming fortunes are nearly exclusively dependent on Star Wars and Marvel right now.
