She has angered transgenders, activists and their allies, many of whom have began re-evaluating the diversity quotient in her books. Her contention is that there should be a distinction between biological females and trans women, and that there are only two sex, as opposed to gender, which can be multiple. But Warner Bros stuck with Depp, at least until he lost his libel case against UK tabloid The Sun that had called him a “wife-beater.”īut all hell broke loose when Rowling came under fire for her alleged transphobic tweets and statements. Depp had been accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife Amber Heard, and had become something of a pariah in Hollywood. It did not help that fans were not too happy about Johnny Depp, who essayed the supervillain of the film Grindelwald, being part of the cast. The film was overstuffed and overlong, and did not have many of those wow moments that peppered Potter movies. But Crimes of Grindelwald turned out to be a total mess with a plot that was at once too complicated and too simplistic. The first movie was a success and the franchise should have gained popularity with future instalments. The whole franchise smacked of cash grab by Warner Bros and Rowling, of trying to capitalise on the popularity of Harry Potter. Fantastic Beasts, on the other had, did not have any concrete foundation from which to launch a franchise.Īnd the preliminary decision to divide the franchise into five parts, on the basis of outlines (perhaps) did not inspire a lot of confidence. Harry Potter films worked because writers and directors had thousands of pages of source material at their disposal in the form of JK Rowling’s books. The franchise, some might say, has been doomed from the beginning. Jude Law and Eddie Redmayne in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. The face-off will establish Dumbledore as the greatest wizard of his age. The subsequent films and the franchise as a whole is leading up to the titanic duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, who is his former lover. We find him in New York in the first film, ostensibly to release a trafficked thunderbird to its home in Arizona, but it is revealed in the sequel that he was sent there by Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law essaying the younger version of future headmaster of Hogwarts) to keep an eye out for Gellert Grindelwald, the supervillain of the franchise and the most powerful dark lord in history until Voldemort outdid him. Played by Eddie Redmayne in the movie, the Hogwarts alumnus and Englishman Newt is extremely likable as a dorky but talented wizard.

Written by Magizoologist (a wizard or witch who studies magical creatures) Newt Scamander, it was also written by and released as an actual book by Rowling. The franchise is named after Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a book that is both real and fictional.

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