Well, call it the November surprise. With “Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them” set to open in a few weeks, the film has been tracking to open domestically around $75 million, which some thought was a bit low. But that figure would be the same as “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which came around the middle of that franchise, and I think that’s a reasonable expectation for Warner Bros. to have for what’s the start of a spinoff series, essentially. And what people might forget is that a) ‘Order Of The Phoenix’ earned over $930 million worldwide and b) historically, about 70% of “Harry Potter” box office came from abroad, so domestic numbers don’t really matter. All this to say that the timing of this latest bit of news is….interesting….
Deadline reports that Johnny Depp has signed up for a role in “Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them 2” (remember, this is going to be a five-film series), and even more, he’ll have a cameo in the first one. There’s no word his role, but speculation/guessing/wishing is already running around online that Depp will be playing young Dumbledore, which would certainly be…something.
“Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them” opens on November 18th. I presume those tracking numbers are going to start going up….