Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is streaming now on HBO Max. The movie premiered in theaters nationwide on Wednesday, April 6 and had a short exclusive run there. Like many other movies since the COVID-19 pandemic, it had a quick turnaround for home release, and became available on HBO Max starting on Monday, May 30.
The pandemic led to a lot of shakeups in the movie industry, and Warner Bros. seems to be leading the charge in many ways. The studio released all of its 2021 movies simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. This year it is taking a slightly different approach, and many fans have been caught off guard. In the case of Fantastic Beasts, some fans suspected that this did not bode well for the future of the franchise. However, you can speculate on the negative reviews, controversial press and dwindling success of this Harry Potter spinoff series, but the quick jump to streaming does not say anything in particular for the future of Fantastic Beasts.
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Naturally, some casual movie fans saw how quickly this title made the jump to streaming and assumed it was a reflection of its poor commercial performance. However, this has become pretty common for movies in the last couple of years – especially at Warner Bros. The studio released all of its movies on HBO Max at the same time they were released in theaters in 2021. The faster turn-around time since then seems to simply be their new strategy.
Still, the future of the Fantastic Beasts franchise is certainly in question. The Secrets of Dumbledore earned about $396 million at box offices around the world on a $200 million production budget. Meanwhile, the movie has an average rating of 5.5 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes, with just 47 percent of the reviews counting as “positive.”
There are certainly some fans out there who decided to skip this movie based on Rowling’s increasing dedication to fighting against transgender rights wherever possible. Meanwhile, replacing Depp in this movie may have driven some of his die-hard fans away as well. Finally, the movie had to contend with a last-minute PR nightmare thanks to Miller, who was arrested for assault in Hawaii on the weekend of the premiere.
Rowling told fans that she expected the Fantastic Beasts story to span five films a few years ago, but that may not be the case anymore. Warner Bros. never officially ordered any sequels in advance, and according to a report by Variety, the studio planned to make its decision based on the performance of The Secrets of Dumbledore. So far, no announcements have been made. The movie is streaming now on HBO Max.
