Early tracking for the upcoming Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes Of Grindelwald is showing that the new Harry Potter prequel could be at least matching the opening weekend box office take of its predecessor.
While industry estimates vary, reports are placing an opening of anywhere between $63 and $75 million. The original Fantastic Beasts opened to a $74.4 weekend in 2016.
Of course, with three weeks to go before the curtain rises on the film, much can change. Often these early forecasts are low and potentially increase as audience excitement grows towards the film’s opening day. Another factor that may goose the box office is that this installment looks to have some more concrete links to the Harry Potter franchise in the form of a return to magical school Hogwarts and Jude law as a younger version of headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
The first Fantastic Beasts ultimately earned $234 million at the domestic box office and an additional $580 million overseas. If Fantastic Beasts 2 manages to land in similar territory opening weekend as the first film did, there doesn’t seem to be any reason as to why he sequel wouldn’t ultimately perform the same way.
This could also be a big season for Warners. Following Fantastic Beasts 2‘s release, the studio has its next installment in its DC Comics Extended Universe, Aquaman, hitting theaters on December 14. Although Warners DCEU films have had some box office performance issues in the past, there has been some positive early buzz around the film.
Warners has already had a pretty good year so far thanks to films like Crazy Rich Asians, The Meg, Ready Player One and A Star Is Born helping to bring in $1.4 billion domestically so far. If Fantastic Beasts 2 and Aquaman do well, it could help the studio finish strong, within sight of the $2 billion mark.
