The Harry Potter stories are about to be told once again, but not everything that fans have wanted to see can make it to the screen. We’re used to the idea of the Wizarding World being a guaranteed winner: whether it’s the bestselling books, the billion dollar movies, or the theme parks that attract millions of guests per year, it’s pretty hard to stop, and HBO’s upcoming remake should be no different. But that makes the franchise’s one failure all the more interesting, and all the more disappointing.
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The Fantastic Beasts series once held a lot of promise, but eventually petered out. And with the release of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore in April 2022, and subsequently its middling reviews and disappointing box office ($407 million worldwide on a $200m budget) led to its demise. There had originally been a five-movie plan in place for these films, and a clear direction to what it was building towards: the duel between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald in 1945, the most famous fight in wizard history.
We Might Never Get To See Dumbledore & Grindelwald’s Duel On Screen
The duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald is the stuff of legend, with no other coming close to matching it in terms of the terror and awe it inspired in those who witnessed it. It’s also one of the most important: with his victory, Dumbledore ensured Grindelwald’s capture, ended the Global Wizarding War, and became the rightful owner of the Elder Wand. The Fantastic Beasts movies were certainly building to this, with Grindelwald established as the major villain, and The Secrets of Dumbledore, which had them briefly face off, being set in the 1930s.
The movies were also adding more context and depth to this duel. That wasn’t just by portraying Grindelwald’s rise to power in the Wizarding World, but also Dumbledore’s own relationship with, and feelings for, him. This wasn’t particularly well-handled, admittedly, especially in The Crimes of Grindelwald, but The Secrets of Dumbledore did finally start making it clear on screen, rather than just something that existed in vague hints.
The Harry Potter movies didn’t do a great job with wizard duels, with them largely reduced to just shooting blasts at each other. But the one that did elevate above this, while not as good as on the page, was Dumbledore vs. Lord Voldemort in The Order of the Phoenix. If it could’ve taken that even further, then there was the potential for something spectacular. It might not fully live up to imaginations of what it could be, but it should still have been a sight to behold if done right.
Alas, that chance probably won’t come again. There’s seemingly no chance of Fantastic Beasts 4 and 5 ever happening, and the focus right now is on the remake. That could in theory include it, especially as it’s expanding things from the page and beyond Harry’s POV, but it would be very expensive and thus perhaps hard to justify including, given it’d be a plot diversion. It could maybe show a glimpse of it when covering the history of the Elder Wand, but it’s difficult to imagine the full duel being included. Fantastic Beasts was the chance, and it ultimately failed.
What Went Wrong With Fantastic Beasts?
There are several factors behind the failure of Fantastic Beasts. One of the most simple is that the quality simply wasn’t good enough. While that hasn’t always stopped franchises from being a success, there was a clear bar set by the Harry Potter movies and, for the most part, the Beasts films failed to clear it. That created a general malaise and disinterest with the saga, as its steep box office decline shows.
It was also plagued by controversy, too, including J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender people, and the casting of Johnny Depp amid allegations of domestic violence (with Grindelwald later recast for The Secrets of Dumbledore). There’s also the fact that it moved away from, well, fantastic beasts. The first movie was actually very good and captured some of the necessary magic, and perhaps would’ve been better off as a standalone. The sequels sidelined News Scamander and became more focused on Dumbledore and Grindelwald. With this, there were also Harry Potter plot holes and inconsistencies.
None of those would have necessarily been fatal in isolation. Who knows, had they been successes, then we might not be getting a Harry Potter remake, as there would instead have been faith with exploring other parts of the franchise (maybe a Marauders spinoff would’ve happened, too). But together, all those factors combined to hit the franchise with a killing curse that not even Harry Potter could survive, robbing us of Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald, maybe for good.
The Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies are available to stream on HBO Max.
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