After critical and financial disappointments, the Fantastic Beasts series needs to shed the Harry Potter creative team to move forward.
Moving away from the creative team behind the last several Harry Potter movies could save future Fantastic Beasts movies from further disappointing audiences. One of the most charming elements of the eight Harry Potter films was how their style changed over the course of the series. In addition to the actors aging and the tone of the source material darkening, this change can be attributed to the rotation of the creative team behind the movies.
Over the course of eight movies, four directors oversaw the Harry Potter series. Chris Columbus directed The Philosopher’s Stone and The Chamber of Secrets, giving a wide-eyed innocence to the early chapters in the series. Alfonso Cuaron added a gothic touch to The Prisoner of Azkaban, and Mike Newell corralled the series’ longest novel into a brisk action movie. David Yates then created a more unified aesthetic for the final four movies, which he has continued into the Fantastic Beasts series.
While the Harry Potter brand once commanded the box office, 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald flopped financially and critically. Additionally, both Fantastic Beasts movies have left little cultural impact compared to their Harry Potter predecessors. The only fan response Fantastic Beasts seems to generate is universal criticism for their strange plot points. This can be attributed to the lack of change in the core creative team since The Half-Blood Prince in 2009. Going forward, the Fantastic Beasts series and the Wizarding World as a whole should seek out new talent behind the camera.
The various directors of the Harry Potter films had the benefit of adapting novels years after they had come out. While both Fantastic Beasts movies have felt like first drafts, screenwriter Steve Kloves had the benefit of being able to adapt the Harry Potter movies to the screen from well-liked books. Kloves wrote seven of the eight screenplays and benefited from the novels’ clear and consistent point of view in writing for Daniel Radcliffe's Harry Potter. This led to well-rounded characters, clear and effective plots, and a consistent development of the story across multiple movies.
The variety of filmmakers also prevented any of the Harry Potter installments from becoming stale. While dismissals of directors from franchise films are now seen as signs of creative conflict, all the changes in Harry Potter directors fit the thematic shifts in the series. The grim tone of Yates’s later movies would not have fit the sense of wonder in The Philosopher’s Stone just as Columbus’s style would not have suited the time-turner antics of The Prisoner of Azkaban. This willingness to change styles is no longer in vogue, with cinematic universes attempting to create uniformity across multiple series entries, as seen in Fantastic Beasts and its focus on the franchise's past.
This rotation of filmmakers resulted in a stylistic arc that continued across the series. It worked well with the aging child actors and audiences who hungered for darker plots as they aged with them. This chemistry is unique even today in a world of franchise filmmaking that seeks to create stylistically unified cinematic universes. In addition to plot and character differences, this synergy of developing styles and aging actors is something that is noticeably absent in the Fantastic Beasts series.
Like other prequels before it, Fantastic Beasts has offered baffling backstory to characters that did not require any explanation. Chief among these is Nagini’s unasked-for origin story in The Crimes of Grindelwald. For all of their potential to expand the Wizarding World beyond Hogwarts, the Fantastic Beasts movies seem drawn to revisiting the same locations and characters, but to lesser results. Even the inspired casting choice of Jude Law as a young Albus Dumbledore does not have the gravity one would expect from seeing such an iconic character return.
While the magical creatures seen in the Harry Potter movies felt organic to their story, they feel more like merchandising gimmicks to sell plush animals in the Fantastic Beasts films. In this way, they feel like a cynical response to the popularity of creatures like the hippogriff in The Prisoner of Azkaban. Rather than organically build a story that features a menagerie of magical creatures and the threat of dark wizards, Fantastic Beasts seemed to include these elements simply because they were successful components of the Harry Potter series.
Although they are supposed to represent a travelog visiting various cities and exploring their magical communities, London, New York City and Paris all look equally drab across both Fantastic Beasts movies. Over the course of eight films, the creative team behind the Harry Potter series managed to imbue the brown-gray stone architecture of Hogwarts with warmth and character. Instead of finding the correct look for different locations, the Fantastic Beasts series has largely borrowed its production design from the last four Harry Potter movies, even when it does not suit the material. This inflexibility can be attributed to the fact that Yates, Rowling, and now a returning Steve Kloves, have been the core collaborators for over a decade, now to diminishing returns.
While bringing Steve Kloves back to co-write the upcoming Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will likely improve upon Rowling’s sole writing credit in the first two series entries, it still preserves the core creative team a decade past their peak. And although another experienced screenwriter will likely improve dialogue, pacing and characterization, the whole effort of Fantastic Beasts feels so limited after two lackluster entries. Although this combination of collaborators has created magic once before and a decade earlier, it is time that the reins be handed to others who can craft something more inspiring and new for the franchise going forward.
While Fantastic Beasts began as a purported travelog showing the variety in the twentieth-century Wizarding World, the results so far have been uniformly gray no matter the setting. By handing the last two installments to one or two filmmakers new to the franchise, they could each be given a unique sense of place and style much like the original Harry Potter series. This would also set a helpful precedent going forward in the cinematic Wizarding World. Rather than a singular aesthetic, the Wizarding World needs to be guided by an adaptable creative ethic. This extends beyond the director’s chair and into the writers' room, where Rowling’s choice of plot points has become uninspired.
Rowling’s habit of footnoting her own writing with unneeded explanations of character and world-building minutia proves that she is no longer aware of what is dramatically captivating in her own fantasy universe. Additionally, accusations of transphobia against Rowling have led to outrage from critical audience members who felt that Harry Potter promoted empathy and acceptance. The joy and wonder from her original novels are not seen in either of the Fantastic Beasts movies, leading to the need for new creative voices to bring these elements back to the series.
Harry Potter has now entered a place in its cultural lifespan that Star Wars has. Individuals influenced by the books and movies have become creators in their own right. They have interpretations of the source material and ideas for continuations which may be more inspired than those from the original creative team. As evidenced by the middling reception and box office disappointment of the Fantastic Beasts series, the Wizarding World has reached the point where offering creative control to newcomers could give it a much-needed injection of magic.
