Following poor reviews and box office of $653 million compared to the first film’s $814 million, Warner Bros want to get Fantastic Beasts 3 right. Speaking with the LA Times, Kevin Tsujihara was open about The Crimes of Grindelwald not attracting as many cinema-goers as its predecessor. He said: “The second film didn’t perform as well as the first, but I think we know what we need to do to get the third film hopefully even better than the first one. And JK Rowling is really working hard now on that third script, and we’re going to get it right.”
He added: “She has an incredible vision of where she wants to go with this that is incredibly exciting.
“The hardest part of the franchise is you have such a big core fan base.
“That fan base really knows the lore and they want to go deep into these characters.
“But what you don’t want to do is intimidate people. You want to be able to create a stand-alone movie that’s enjoyable for someone who isn’t steeped in the lore.”
He added: “It didn’t resonate as much as we’d hoped it would, but the press writes it up in a more negative way than I would.”
“These are very high-profile movies. If Aladdin, which I happen to think is a terrific film, doesn’t work somehow, that’s big news and much bigger news than if a movie somewhere else, like The Kid Who Would Be King [at Fox,] doesn’t work.”
Star Wars Episode IX is the next film in the franchise, while no films beyond that have been officially announced except general news of planned, currently untitled, trilogies.
Fantastic Beasts 3 is set for release in 2020.