Fantastic Beasts 3: Why The Film Was Delayed

Fantastic Beasts actor Dan Fogler says filming on Fantastic Beasts 3 was delayed because it's "bigger" than the previous movies combined and needs extra prep time. Just five years after the Harry Potter films wrapped up with Deathly Hallows: Part 2 in 2011, the Wizarding World returned with a prequel-spinoff titled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Written by J.K. Rowling herself, Fantastic Beasts was designed to serve as the first entry in a five-part franchise about magizoologist Newt Scamander and the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald's rise to power, several decades before Mr. Potter was born.

The first Fantastic Beasts was mostly well-received by critics and grossed $814 million at the global box office, in turn paving the way for more films. Unfortunately, last year's sequel, The Crimes of Grindelwald, was controversial from the very beginning, largely due to Johnny Depp's casting as Grindelwald. The actual movie grossed $653 million worldwide, which is still a huge amount but a noticeable drop-off from the first film. It also earned generally mediocre reviews and was criticized for spending so much time setting up future sequels that its own storyline felt muddled and overstuffed. Then, just last month, the news broke that production on Fantastic Beasts 3 has been delayed until this fall.

Most people seemed pleased about this and saw it as a sign that Rowling and her creative team are taking some extra time to fine-tune their game plan for Fantastic Beasts 3, in response to the criticisms against The Crimes of Grindelwald. According to Fogler, however, that might not be the case. In an interview with Hey U Guys, the actor said the film is simply so huge that it needed additional prep work:

Yeah, we start in the Fall. The movie is going to be gigantic! The reason we were given is that the movie is bigger than the first two combined. They needed more time to prep and they didn’t want to rush anything so they pushed it back.

Of course, it's certainly possible that Rowling and director David Yates (who's directed every Wizarding World movie since 2007) both needed extra time to prep for Fantastic Beasts 3 and are adjusting their overall game plan in response to The Crimes of Grindelwald's reviews. It's not hard to believe that the next installment will be far bigger than the previous films, either. After all, The Crimes of Grindelwald set the stage for the beginnings of an all-out war between Grindelwald's followers and the rest of Wizarding kind in Fantastic Beasts 3, leading up to the start of WWII in the fourth and fifth movies. These films are only going to get more massive from here, basically, which lines up with Fogler's comments. That also makes it all the more likely that Fantastic Beasts 3 will be delayed from its original November 2020 release date target.

The series is also aiming to become more of an international affair moving forward, from the sound of it. Yates previously teased that every Fantastic Beasts sequel will take place in a different major city - a claim supported by Fogler, who revealed that Fantastic Beasts 3 will pay a visit to Brazil during his Hey U Guys interview. It remains to be seen how much of the movie actually takes place in South America since - as he admitted - Fogler hasn't read the final script just yet. Still, the fact that it's going there at all supports the actor's claim that Fantastic Beasts 3 is shaping up to be even "bigger" than Newt Scamander's previous adventures.