‘Fantastic Beasts 3’: Warner Bros. Boss Has Plans to Improve the Sequel

If you found yourself underwhelmed by last fall’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, it sounds like you shouldn’t give up hope just yet.

In a recent interview with the LA Times, Warner Bros. president Kevin Tsujihara spoke about the response to The Crimes of Grindelwald, and how it will affect the remaining Fantastic Beasts films. As Tsujihara put it, Warner Bros. is confident with where the franchise continues to be headed, and with the experience that the studio hopes to bring to fans.

“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.” Tsujihara revealed. “And J.K. Rowling is really working hard now on that third script, and we’re going to get it right. 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.”

To an extent, these comments line up with recent ones from Fantastic Beasts cast members, who had a pretty optimistic outlook about the film’s production being delayed.

“Yeah, we start in the fall. The movie is going to be gigantic,” Dan Fogler, who will return as Jacob Kowalski, said in a previous interview. “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. I can tell you that we are going to Brazil. I don’t really know much… [laughs]. I’ll get a script closer to when we start shooting.”

And while Crimes of Grindelwald was filled with some controversial twists and turns, J.K. Rowling has hinted that everything will ultimately work out in the end.

“As with the Harry Potter books, it is all mapped out,” Rowling explained last October. “In fact, when we announced the five films, I talked about that. It’s always possible that some details will change along the way, but the arc of the story is there. It’s been an amazing opportunity to tell parts of the backstory that never made it into the original books. I’m thinking particularly of one character that I think fans will be surprised to meet in this movie.”

The third Fantastic Beasts film is expected to debut in theaters on November 20, 2020.