'Fantastic Beasts 3' will be 'better' promises Warner Brothers CEO

The CEO of Warner Brothers, the studio behind the Fantastic Beasts film franchise, says that the third film in the series will be “hopefully even better than the first one.”

Kevin Tsujihara said in an interview with the LA Times: “The second film didn’t perform as well as the first, but I think we know what we need to do to get the third film hopefully even better than the first one.”

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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was the second film in the five-film Harry Potter prequel series. The film earned the lowest opening weekend in the history of the Harry Potter film franchise.

The first Fantastic Beasts movie premiered in 2016. It was well-received critically (though not as beloved as the mainline series) and grossed £614 million globally. As such, four planned sequels were green lit.

Tsujihara added: “J.K. Rowling is really working hard now on that third script, and we’re going to get it right. She has an incredible vision of where she wants to go with this that is incredibly exciting.”

J. K. Rowling tweeted on 10 December, 2018, that she had finished writing the third film, so it’s unclear how she’s working on the third script now, but it’s likely she’s editing it.

Tsujihara went on to say: “The hardest part of the franchise is you have such a big core fan base. That fan base really knows the lore and they want to go deep into these characters. But what you don’t want to do is intimidate people. You want to be able to create a stand-alone movie that’s enjoyable for someone who isn’t steeped in the lore.”

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Production on the third Fantastic Beasts film was recently delayed, and its November 2020 release appears to be in doubt.