The Fantastic Beasts movie series hasn’t been a success, especially when compared to the rest of the Harry Potter saga, but its failures could make way for a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child movie adaptation. The Wizarding World is one of the richest and most beloved fantasy worlds in entertainment, and even though the story of “The Boy Who Loved” and his battle against Lord Voldemort came to an end in 2007 (in the books) and 2011 (in the movies), there are many more stories from the Wizarding World to tell.
In order to expand the Wizarding World and explore other parts of this universe’s history, a movie series inspired by the guidebook Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them began in 2016. The first movie, titled just like the book, introduced viewers to magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), who enlisted Muggle Jacob's (Dan Fogler) help to round up some escaped magical creatures while a strange dark force terrorized New York City as Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) rose to power. Although Newt and his adventures involving magical creatures were supposed to be the core of the Fantastic Beasts series, the second movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, shifted its focus from Scamander to the conflict and backstory between young Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) and Grindelwald.
Unfortunately, the Fantastic Beasts movie series hasn’t been a success, and the third installment, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, has become the Wizarding World's entry with the lowest box office opening, meaning that the future of the next two installments is unclear. However, that doesn’t mean all is lost for the Wizarding World, as the failures of Fantastic Beasts could make way for a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child movie adaptation.
The Fantastic Beasts Franchise Has Mostly Failed So Far
The Harry Potter movie series came to an end with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, giving full closure to the stories of Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, and seeing the defeat of Lord Voldemort, but the history of the Wizarding World before the Harry Potter series was unknown. Fantastic Beasts has explored the rise of Gellert Grindelwald, the darkest wizard before Voldemort, and his plans of Wizarding supremacy and domination, but the change of tone from Newt’s journeys to the conflict between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, many underdeveloped subplots, and the constant retcons to Harry Potter canon, along with many behind-the-scenes controversies, have led to the failure of the Fantastic Beasts movies.
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is the highest-grossing movie from this branch of the Wizarding World, but compared to the Harry Potter saga, it sits in the eighth place. Fantastic Beasts 2 and 3 underperformed at the box office, sitting at the two bottom places, and their critical reception hasn’t been the best either. The Crimes of Grindelwald and The Secrets of Dumbledore got negative/mixed reviews, with most critics pointing out their oversaturation of details and underdeveloped subplots, uneven tone, and needlessly complicated plots. Fantastic Beasts lacks the magic and charm that drew the audience into the Wizarding World in the first place, and its future is now a mystery.
Fantastic Beasts 4 & 5 May Not Happen Now
The Fantastic Beasts movie series was originally believed to be a trilogy, but J.K. Rowling announced in 2016 their plans to make it a saga with five movies, with the purpose of covering events from Wizarding history that took place between 1926 and 1945, with the main focus being the Global Wizarding War, led by Grindelwald. However, the underperformance of the Fantastic Beasts movies so far has put a big question mark over those plans for a saga with five movies, and a couple of days before the release of Fantastic Beasts 3, it was reported (via Variety) that greenlighting Fantastic Beasts 4 and 5 would depend on the critical and commercial performance of The Secrets of Dumbledore – and if it truly depends on that, it’s unlikely there will be more Fantastic Beasts movies, as all this shows there’s not a huge demand for this branch of the Wizarding World to continue.
WB Still Needs The Harry Potter Franchise To Work
Warner Bros. is home to a number of franchises, but Harry Potter is one of its biggest flagship IPs, and one that continues to be quite popular with the audience. The success of the Wizarding World has been such that it has branched out to theme parks, other books, a stage play, video games, and more, so there’s still interest in the franchise and Warner Bros. can still benefit from it. The Harry Potter reunion special, for example, was a big hit, so it’s not like the audience doesn’t want to see more from the Wizarding World, but Warner has to find the right stories that will catch the attention of its target audience, and the solution to it could be returning to Harry and company through a different story, set many years after the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows prologue: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Harry Potter & The Cursed Child Movie Would Likely Be A Big Hit
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a two-part play written by Jack Thorne from a story by Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne. The Cursed Child is set 19 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and follows Harry’s younger son, Albus Severus Potter, who gets into trouble at Hogwarts after messing with a time-turner, while Harry is now Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic. Although the story has been criticized by Harry Potter fans, The Cursed Child was a massive success, with productions in Japan, Australia, and Broadway. The Cursed Child, then, would be the best option for Warner Bros. to keep the Wizarding World alive, and as analyst Jeff Bock pointed out, the studio would benefit from taking the audience back to what they liked most about the Wizarding World, which is Harry Potter.
A movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child would bring back the original trio of heroes and could even bring the original actors back, which would definitely be a big hook for the audience, especially after how the Fantastic Beasts movies failed to connect with its audience. Of course, there are other stories from the Wizarding World that Warner Bros. could explore, such as the highly-requested Marauders-centered movie or TV series, but at the moment, there may be no surer thing for the studio than a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child movie.
Will A Harry Potter & The Cursed Child Movie Happen (& When?)
Rumors about a possible movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child began when Chris Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter movies, said he would be interested in directing an adaptation of the play, with the intent of having the original Harry Potter cast members reprising their roles. However, there doesn’t seem to be any real plans to adapt Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to the big screen, but again, with the failure of Fantastic Beasts, this option could be reconsidered by the studio. If a Cursed Child movie is to happen, it’s hard to calculate how soon it could arrive – at the earliest, The Cursed Child could be released in 2025-2026, but 2030 would fit a lot better with the story as it would literally be “19 years later”, just like in the Deathly Hallows epilogue. Unfortunately, Daniel Radcliffe has shared he doesn’t intend to jump back into the Harry Potter role yet, but if the studio waits a couple more years so the story can better fit the actors' age, it’s possible Radcliffe could change his mind. The future of the Wizarding World is unclear after the failures of the Fantastic Beasts series, but not all hope is lost.