'Fantastic Beasts' Sequel Preparing for a Huge Opening
by EG
The Harry Potter spinoff film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was one of the biggest hits of 2016, and its sequel is going to be one of the biggest hits of 2018. Read on for projections.
Via Deadline.
Holiday moviegoing will explode this weekend as Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald takes over the world with a global near everywhere opening ranging that at the lowest looks to be coming in at $253M and at the highest $275M. On the low end that’s 15% higher than the worldwide launch of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them back in November 2016.
While the first movie posted a three-day opening stateside that was lower than any Harry Potter movie with $74.4M, it’s always been about the global play for Warner Bros. with this spinoff series with Fantastic Beasts 1 finaling at $814M WW ($580M offshore) and a $164.7M profit after all ancillaries. Warners is expecting a similar ratio with Grindelwald with overseas repping over 70% of the pic’s total gross.
The second Fantastic Beasts movie which is inspired by the fictitious textbook in the J.K. Rowling mythology by monster expert Newt Scamander is even more closely aligned to Harry Potter than its 2016 predecessor. Warner Bros. marketing materials have made that clear with shots of the Hogwarts castle and Jude Law playing a young Albus Dumbledore, the ultimate headmaster of the school and mentor to Harry Potter. In addition, Johnny Depp plays Gellert Grindelwald, a dark wizard with connection to all things nefarious in the Potter stories.
It is the sixth time that the J.K. Rowling Harry Potter canon has launched in the pre-Thanksgiving space; the first chapter Sorcerer’s Stone did back in 2001 which was then an opening domestic record at that time with $90.2M. Broken out Grindelwald is looking at $65M-$70M stateside with another $188M-$205M per industry estimates from foreign markets.
Get the rest of the story at Deadline.
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