According to Box Office Mojo, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore earned just over $334 million worldwide, which is a lot of money till you take into account that it cost $200 million to produce, which makes it a failure, box office-wise (what I like to think of as ‘soft’ failure, in that there’s clearly interest in the franchise, just not enough to support an expensive feature film. Maybe Warners ought to consider continuing it in the streaming space?) something Warner Bros should be well-acquainted with considering they sacrificed their 2020 movie slate to further their streaming ambitions).

The first movie in the series, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) earned just over $650 million ($654,855,901), also with a $200 million budget.

That movie was a success. The sequel? Not so much.

And l readily admit that I’m not a fan of Harry Potter, the basis of the Fantastic Beasts movies, though I understand why they’re as popular as they are.

And that’s entirely due to the Scholastic books. That they spawned a successful series of movies doesn’t at all surprise me.

Though The Secrets of Dumbledore? Who’s asking for it? Sure, the movies share characters in common with Harry Potter, but they’re mainly peripheral.

What Fantastic Beasts is is an attempt to do like what Marvel is doing over at Disney, with the difference that even as successful as the Potter books have been, they don’t have the heft that Marvel or DC have (which, as far as DC goes it’s worth mentioning Warner Bros continues to mismanage).

Though putting ‘Marvel’ in front of your movie isn’t a guarantee of success. Look at Sony’s Morbius, which earned almost $162 million ($161,883,847) worldwide on a $75 million budget

Now that’s sounds like a success, till you take into account that people are beginning to return to theaters, which makes me think we’re going to back regular math as far as profitability of movies goes (typically if your movie has to earns 3X its production costs you’re likely going to do just fine, though there are exceptions).

Will there be a sequel to The Secrets of Dumbledore? I have no idea but at some point you have to think that Warner Bros new management will realize that they’re throwing good money after bad, and retrench.