Spoilers Fantastic Beasts 3 has been officially greenlit, and will be set in Rio de Janeiro

Everything Everywhere All At Once is a far superior film, imho, to this movie. I watched the FB movie yesterday and this feels like a good place to end the series. My favorite character is Jacob and I was invested in seeing Jacob and Queenie getting together. I am glad that they did at the end. I don't care about the rest.

 

It doesn't, though.

There's still nearly 15 years' worth of story - and some very important events, including Newt and Tina's wedding and Dumbledore's defeat of Grindelwand - left to be told.

 

He said he doesn't care about any of that though.

 

Hey! I had no clue this movie was even coming out this weekend. Where was the advertising campaign and the big announcements? I haven't seen any trailers--no ads to my social media feeds--nothing.

 

Fantastic Beasts was scheduled for 5 movies. After the first one, the series stared running on fumes. Honestly, at this point FB 4 is where they need to call it quits.

Let the IP cool off for a bit and then come back with a Hogwarts founders prequel.

 

Well.. Potter 5 and 7 were dreary boring movies so it happens in potter movies. But the next was good. So hope FB 4 will be great!

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/throw-good-money-after-bad

 

The movie has opened to a $44-49 million weekend, compared to $62 million in 2018 and $74 million in 2016, we're seeing dwindling returns on this franchise.

Given the amount of problems with the cast, author, and general fan apathy, I'd be very surprised if WB decide to sink another $200 million into a fourth instalment.

 

Pull a Snyder Cut and put kitchen-sink extended editions of FB 1,2 and 3 on HBOMax. If they can get some (any?) buzz going from that, then have FB 4 Parts I & II (aka FB 4 & 5) show up as an HBOMax exclusive. Otherwise yeah, have Rowling type out/publish her 'here's what you could've seen' screenplays for 4 & 5 and call it a day.

 

Like I said last year, my interest in these films have dropped hard, not just because of Rowling's transphobia (which is more than enough to stop me from watching), but also because of the horrible direction they're going in. I largely loved the first film because it actually focused on, you know, fantastic beasts and I really wish they stuck to that premise.

However, between the unnecessary focus on Grindelwald (I really couldn't care less and the switch away from Colin Farrell didn't help), the character assassination of Queenie, and Tina falling more into the background of the story (she barely appeared in the trailers for this one), I have zero interest in this series anymore.

 

I tried to watch the first movie but nothing seemed that interesting to me. I stopped just before the hotel dining room scene. I realized there was more than an hour left of the movie! Boy did it drag.

I heard the second movie is worse. One friend said

"that thing crawled uphill through quick dry-cement."


The whole "Fantastic Beasts" franchise is on reportedly "thin ice" with WB execs. That they're waiting on how the third movie performs before greenlighting the fourth and fifth movies.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/...rry-potter-jk-rowling-johnny-depp-1235226541/

 

I agree. The first one was fun. Redmayne has presence, and Newt and Tina are super cute and the awkward relationship growing between the two is adorably played by both actors. And it works outside of larger plot elements, because the silly Grindelwald reveal only comes at the end and doesn't really inform anything within the plot of the film itself.

The second one completely lost me. The focus on Ezra Miller's character, who really should have died in the first film. The shift towards a heavy focus on Grindelwald and his insurrection, which is basically just Voldemort, the prequel. The overemphasis on Queenie, a character I enjoyed in her small doses in the first film but now positively loathe after the second. And the downplaying of Tina in favor of Leta. Which I understand from a narrative standpoint, but I was watching to see more of Newt and Tina.

And now I hear Tina is only in like one scene in the third film. I just have no interest in seeing this. It has completely jettisoned the things I liked (Newt, Tina, magical creatures) to focus on the Grindelwald and Dumbledore stuff. Which still just isn't interesting because we already know how it ends. It doesn't have anything to say about the characters that we don't already know, but it doesn't want to play with the far more interesting new toys. Plus, more Ezra Miller. Ugh.

 

The first movie was a lot of fun. The second was dreary.

I think they would have been much better off continuing the series with each movie containing an intact story, rather than try to build another epic.

 

Baby animal killing, incoherent electoral politics, and swiftly forgiven fascists/accessories to murder - fun for the whole Wizarding family!



Anyone else remember when this franchise was colorful and cheerful?

 

I guess white people with any sort of financial stake in AL businesses should’ve kept quiet when Bull Connor was using fire hoses and dogs

 

Our family saw it.... i fell asleep near the end (I am getting old, and we had to see a later show due to my wife's work). At our show, there were only a few families there. (Ours was also a predominately African AMerican neighborhood, so that might be one factor for us...i saw other theaters much more filled up thanks to the new Fandfango preview feature on the mobile app).

Regarding the China edit -- seems like it could easily be done... it wasn't like there were any physical scenes or anything. I could see an easy shift from being lovers to best friends or something (I mean "blood brothers" - which was the spell / method that prevented them from killing each other). It wouldn't change much of the impact on the story

I didn't care much for the shift to DUmbledore from Newt. Seems like they were trying to get Hoarry Potter fans back by using that focus.

Our family loved the crab walk...probably the best scene for us.

We will see if this fades away like Divergence (whcih never got it's movie ending) or what. Maybe they can still blame on the Pandemic / oversaturation of big movies? I dunno... Defnitely the marketing stunk. I am only NOW seeing ads on Youtube, AFTER i already bought tickets to see it.

 

I have no interest in this movie, I didn't even see the last one after the first FB movie was so awful and then Rowling decided to go mask off bigot. I just hope the studio doesn't decide the problem was fantasy films not appealing to audiences and not a terrible story from a terrible person.

 

That is not what I'm saying at all. It's a Harry Potter movie, it's not the kind of thing that is worth a) sacrificing potentially hundreds or millions or dollars for or b)creating an international political incident over.

 

Oh, for goodness sakes. First you imply it's "just a movie," then you imply the movie is so vital to US-Chinese relations that not releasing a censored version to China will trigger an international incident.

Again, this is no different than the 60s TV executives who were worried about losing ratings by showing African -Americans on shows like Star Trek. Corporate greed and cowardice. Though, at least back then they eventually did the right thing.

 

The difference there is that they were still able to show it in those states, and got at least some viewers, but with movies if you don't cut the stuff the PRC doesn't like the movie can't ever be released there.
And that is a lot of money to lose, over something that can be cut out of the movie. Releasing or not releasing a movie in China could very well make or break it, and executives are going to put that over political or social issues every time.
I'm not saying I like it, but I can see why they do it.
And this is not something unique to this movie or to the WB, all of the studios have been doing it with their movies for decades.
As for the first part of my other post, I wasn't saying it was important to US/China relations, I was saying that it's such a minor thing it's not worth sneaking around their censors, which might not even be possible, and potentially pissing off their government if they found out.