Warner Bros. is set to take us back to the Wizarding World next month for J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a spinoff prequel to the blockbuster Harry Potter series, which is itself being eyed as the first of a five-film franchise.
With no new Potter movie on the horizon (until Warner Bros. convinces Rowling to let the studio adapt The Cursed Child, at least), the studio will certainly have high hopes for Fantastic Beasts, but without the attraction of the Boy Wizard, how will it fare?
Well, the first tracking numbers have now arrived online, and it’s said that the David Yates-helmed movie is heading for a $75 million domestic opening weekend. That would be down on all of the Harry Potter movies, albeit only $2 million shy of the debut weekends for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Overseas is where the Harry Potter movies all really shined (accounting for 70% of the franchise’s total gross), although as yet there’s been no word as to what kind of international numbers Fantastic Beasts is looking at.
SEE ALSO: Character posters for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident…were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” stars Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”), Katherine Waterston (“Steve Jobs,” “Inherent Vice”) as Tina; Tony Award winner Dan Fogler (“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”) as Jacob; Alison Sudol (“Dig,” “Transparent”) as Tina’s sister, Queenie; Ezra Miller (“Trainwreck”) as Credence; two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton (“In America,” “Sweet and Lowdown”) as Mary Lou; Oscar winner Jon Voight (“Coming Home,” TV’s “Ray Donovan”) as Henry Shaw, Sr.; Ron Perlman (the “Hellboy” films) as Gnarlack; Carmen Ejogo (“Selma”) as Seraphina; Jenn Murray (“Brooklyn”) as Chastity; young newcomer Faith Wood-Blagrove as Modesty; and Colin Farrell (“True Detective”) as Percival Graves.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set for release on November 18th.
Originally published October 27, 2016. Updated December 16, 2019.
