Harry Potter spinoff sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald won the weekend box office, but its debut in theaters was an underwhelming one for the franchise, with the lowest opening weekend and worst reviews of any chapter in J. K. Rowling’s Wizarding World cinematic universe.
To no one’s surprise at all, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald won the weekend box office, but it was just a good — not fantastic — debut for the Harry Potter spinoff sequel.
The sequel to 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them raked in $62.2 million over its first weekend in theaters, and while that might seem like a respectable debut for most movies, it’s actually the weakest opening weekend for any film so far in J. K. Rowling’s Wizarding World — the cinematic universe that encompasses the Harry Potter movies and the Fantastic Beasts prequel series. The first Fantastic Beasts movie had a $74.4 million opening weekend, while the worst debut for any of the Harry Potter movies was the $77.1 million premiere for 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix .
Unfortunately, ticket sales weren’t the only area in which The Crimes of Grindelwald slumped behind its predecessor. The film’s 40-percent positive review score on Rotten Tomatoes was the worst of all ten films in the Wizarding World universe by a wide margin (trailing well behind the 74-percent score for 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and the 77-percent score for Order of the Phoenix). The Crimes of Grindelwald also took a step down in audience approval, earning a “B+” grade from ticket-buying audiences. (The first Fantastic Beasts received an “A” grade.)
The news wasn’t much better for any of the other new releases that made it into the weekend’s top ten films.
Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne’s comedy Instant Family finished at the low end of what was expected from the PG-13 film with $14.7 million in US theaters. The film follows a couple who gets more than they bargained for when they adopt three children, and its debut did come with at least one positive note: It received an “A” grade from audiences and has a 79-percent positive review score. This could mean good things for the film as we enter into the holiday weekend, when family-oriented films — particularly comedies — typically get a significant bump.
Also premiering over the weekend was the crime drama Widows, which earned high praise from professional critics ( 91-percent positive reviews), but didn’t win over audiences or rake in the sort of opening-weekend money one might expect from a film featuring Liam Neeson, Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, and Robert Duvall. Its $12.3 million was good for fifth place.
The rest of the weekend’s top ten movies were all returning films, with The Grinch, Bohemian Rhapsody, and A Star is Born in particular all continuing their impressive theatrical runs.
The upcoming Thanksgiving holiday weekend is always a popular one for high-profile new releases, and this year is no exception.
Among the films premiering in theaters is another franchise spinoff sequel, Creed II, which pits boxer Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) and his mentor, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), against the son of Rocky’s old nemesis, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Also hitting theaters is Robin Hood, the latest re-imagining of the classic Robin Hood story, this time starring Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx.
Both of those films will likely do well, but the big winner is expected to be Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet, Disney’s sequel to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph, which is hitting at just the right time for an animated Disney feature.
