Fantastic Beasts 3 Lands Low with $43 Million Box Office Opening

By Megan Peters - April 17, 2022 12:47 pm EDT

The box office numbers are in for the weekend, and all eyes are looking to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. After all, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore hit theaters a few days ago, and moviegoers have been curious as to how its earnings would stack up. Now, the results are in, and Fantastic Beasts 3 opened to a franchise-low at just $43 million USD domestically.

According to the report, Fantastic Beasts 3 did land in the top spot at the weekend box office. However, as Variety notes, this win comes during a time when the pandemic has muted box office hauls overall. The reviews for Fantastic Beasts 3 did not help drum up buzz ahead of its release either. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has an aggregate score of 48% from critics, so it is clear their opinions are mixed. However, the audience score does rank Fantastic Beasts 3 at 84% as of today.

As for how this opening stacks up to those before it, the first Fantastic Beasts film debuted at $74 million in 2016. The franchise followed up with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018 which drew in $62 million in its opening weekend. The first went on to gross over $812 million over the course of its theatrical run globally while Fantastic Beasts 2 brought in $654.9 million. At this point, there is no definite answer for how this latest entry will do long-term, but experts expect Fantastic Beasts 3 to gross upwards of $400+ million.

As you can imagine, this muted opening is a difficult one to unpack. While the pandemic certainly impacted its opening, fans are also more disillusioned with the Harry Potter franchise than ever before. The iconic series failed to drum up major hype for Fantastic Beasts 3 domestically, so like before, the movie series is banking on global audiences to bankroll a profit. Between recent legal troubles with Ezra Miller and Johnny Depp's exit from the series, Fantastic Beasts has drawn a number of detractors in the last three years. And given this weekend's box office totals, the pushback against Harry Potter shows.

What do you think about this weekend's box office results? Have you been able to check out Fantastic Beasts 3 yet? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB.

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