The runtime of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third installment in the Harry Potter prequel film series, has been officially revealed. Following the first installment, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the second film, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, received a noticeably poor reception. Due to this (and also a lockdown), this new third chapter has undergone several production delays and a major recasting. After four years of waiting, the movie will finally be released next month.
Following the events of the second film, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore sees the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) still gathering his followers, while Hogwarts professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) is still hesitant to put a stop to the dark wizard himself. As an alternative, he assembles a team that includes magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), Newt's brother Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner), Newt's assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates), Ilvermorny professor Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams), troubled wizard Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam), and No-Maj Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) to hunt down Grindelwald in his stead.
The BBFC (the British Board for Film Classification) revealed that Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will be the longest installment of the series yet at 136 minutes (2 hours and 16 minutes). This continues an odd pattern of the films sequentially adding two minutes to their runtime - the first one is 132 minutes long, and the second is 134. In the broader spectrum of the overall Harry Potter franchise, this makes Secrets of Dumbledore the eighth-longest installment of the entire series, below 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (138 minutes) but ahead of 2011’s The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (130 minutes).
Early reactions to Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore have been surprisingly positive, with most reviews claiming it to be the best movie of the series so far. They've called Mads Mikkelsen's Grindelwald a "huge upgrade" from Johnny Depp's iteration and singled out Williams' Lally Hicks as the MVP. Other positive reviews have pointed out the comedy, stating that the amount of it will astonish audiences.
It's generally known that when a film series goes on for multiple installments, each one will usually be sequentially longer. This has been showcased by such franchises as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and the Dark Knight trilogy. Fans tend to appreciate this, as it insinuates that the overarching story will get exponentially deeper and more complex as the series reaches its climactic end. So the fact that Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is the longest installment of its series yet should be seen as a good sign.
Source: BBFC
