Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Preview Night Box Office Revealed
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore pulled in $6 million at preview screenings last night, earning just a hair more than Sony's Morbius did in its Thursday previews and setting the stage for a $40 million opening weekend for the latest installment in J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World, according to Variety. The expected box office toll will make it the lowest opening weekend of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, despite a budget that swelled as a result of Covid-19 protocols and pandemic-related release delays. The movie has received generally fine reviews (currently, it's sitting at 51% on Rotten Tomatoes), but was expected to take a box office hit given the negative response to 2018's Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them pulled in $8.7 million on preview night screenings, building to a $74 million opening weekend in 2015. The Crimes of Grindelwald took in $9.1 million at previews, and had a $62 million opening weekend.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore debuted in 22 countries last weekend and pulled in a total of $58 million, including opening at #1 in China with just shy of $10 million there, where it was censored to meet the demands of the Chinese authorities.
The movie has the deck stacked against it; in addition to diminishing box office returns between installments, and harsh reviews of the second movie, the Harry Potter franchise as a whole has been struggling with creator J.K. Rowling's steady stream of Twitter controversies. Johnny Depp parted ways with the franchise after a British court ruled against him in a defamation case. Depp had sued a tabloid that referred to him as a "wife-beater," but the court found that the allegations were "substantially true." Depp has since changed tactics, and is suing his ex-wife, Aquaman actress Amber Heard, instead. that trial is currently ongoing here in the U.S. Heard is countersuing Depp.
David Yates (Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) directs from a screenplay by J.K. Rowling & Steve Kloves, based upon a screenplay by Rowling. Starring Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, William Nadylam, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Victoria Yeates, Poppy Corby-Tuech, Fiona Glascott, Katherine Waterston, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Richard Coyle, Oliver Masucci, Valerie Pachner, and Mads Mikkelsen, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore opens in North American theaters on April 15.