Did JK Rowling’s Wizarding World fail? The brand was launched in 2016 to turn the Harry Potter stories into a magical universe whose adventures extend far beyond the sorcerer’s apprentice.
The first representative was the spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne starred as magizoologist Newt Scamander, who has his own adventures many decades before Harry’s birth. Five films were plannedbut now, eight years later, there is no longer any legitimate hope of completing the fantasy plan.
Eddie Redmayne doesn’t believe in Fantastic Beasts 4
Three Beasts films have made it to the cinema, although each fell short of the success of its predecessor. Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets (2022) marked the low and end point of the series in terms of finances, He only made half of the first film. A return of Newt in Fantastic Beasts 4 was unlikely after that. Eddie Redmayne recently confirmed this impression to ComicBook.
In an interview about his new series The Day of the Jackal, he was asked whether we would see Newt again. His answer:
I think, [die Fans] probably have Newt [zum letzten Mal gesehen]. That was a very open answer, but yes. And that’s what I know. I mean, you’d have to talk to the people at Warner Bros. and JK Rowling, but As far as I know, that’s it.
The statement comes as no surprise; director David Yates hinted at something similar last year. According to Eddie Redmayne, Newt only lives on in theme parks:
I think he could show up again in the Universal world they’re opening in Florida and you could get a glimpse of what he did in Paris. The Wizarding World is becoming Harry Potter again
Two further signs of turning away from the universe idea are the following:
In the early 2010s, the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe spurred some competitors to also create a universe and continue franchises with spin-off characters. In the case of Harry Potter, this hasn’t proven to be a long-lasting approach, although the last Beasts film even featured a young Albus Dumbledore with Jude Law. Instead one returns to what once made the series famous: the stories of Harry Potter. They will be remade in the upcoming HBO series.
There is still magic, but the Wizarding World is history.