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Fantastic Beasts 3 has the weakest opening in Harry Potter movie history

By Dan Selcke

(L-R) JESSICA WILLIAMS as Eulalie “Lally” Hicks, CALLUM TURNER as Theseus Scamander, JUDE LAW as Albus Dumbledore, FIONNA GLASCOTT as Minerva McGonagall, DAN FOGLER as Jacob Kowalski and EDDIE REDMAYNE as Newt Scamander in Warner Bros. Pictures' fantasy adventure "FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk© 2022 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.Wizarding World™ Publishing Rights © J.K. RowlingWIZARDING WORLD and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
(L-R) JESSICA WILLIAMS as Eulalie “Lally” Hicks, CALLUM TURNER as Theseus Scamander, JUDE LAW as Albus Dumbledore, FIONNA GLASCOTT as Minerva McGonagall, DAN FOGLER as Jacob Kowalski and EDDIE REDMAYNE as Newt Scamander in Warner Bros. Pictures' fantasy adventure "FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk© 2022 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.Wizarding World™ Publishing Rights © J.K. RowlingWIZARDING WORLD and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. /
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Good news: a new Fantastic Beasts movie came out this weekend, The Secrets of Dumbledore. Bad news: the franchise is plagued by so many scandals you’d think it was election season. But more good news: the movie won the weekend box office with $43 million, according to The A.V. Club. But more bad news: that’s the lowest opening weekend for any movie in the Wizarding World franchise. The first Harry Potter made $90 million on its opening weekend, and that was in 2001 money. The early movies also cost a lot less to produce.

We can’t know what’s gonna happen in the weekends to come, but it looks like The Secrets of Dumbledore is continuing the pattern started by The Crimes of Grindelwald where each movie makes less than the last. How long until Warner Bros. decides that the final two movies in the series aren’t worth making? Stay tuned.

I don’t know why it’s so easy to dunk on this franchise. Maybe it’s cause it always seemed like a blatant cash grab; you follow up an eight-movie series based on seven hefty tomes with a five-movie series based on a guidebook? Okay. It’s also possible that all the controversy surrounding screenwriter J.K. Rowling has hurt the franchise; the first Harry Potter book was recently cut from a royal reading list despite it being pretty important to British literature, so I guess even the Queen is parting ways with Rowling. But honestly, I think it’s mostly because the movies themselves are just sorta meh.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore wins the battle, loses the war

In any case, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 came in second at the box office with another $30 million, which put it over $100 million overall. Here’s the full list, courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

  1. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore: $43 million
  2. Sonic The Hedgehog 2: $30 million
  3. The Lost City: $6.5 million
  4. Everything Everywhere All At Once: $6.18 million
  5. Father Stu: $5.7 million
  6. Morbius: $4.7 million
  7. Ambulance: $4 million
  8. The Batman: $3.8 million
  9. KGF: Chapter 2: $2.8 million
  10. Uncharted: $1.1 million

Your move, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent starring Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal.

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