‘Fantastic Beasts’ Is a Hit for Warner Bros.
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Version 0 of 1. LOS ANGELES — Warner Bros. and J. K. Rowling pulled off an exceptionally difficult magic trick over the weekend. Not only did they bring the “Harry Potter” film franchise back to life, they also did it without Harry Potter. “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a movie burdened with laying the foundation for four planned sequels, as well as strengthening the entire “Harry Potter” business empire, arrived to a solid $75 million in ticket sales in North America. The film, which cost an estimated $330 million to make and market worldwide, collected an additional $143.3 million in partial release overseas. Just as important for Warner were strong reviews. The studio’s last three big-budget movies were excoriated by critics. Warner’s vast marketing department saved the day in those cases, using slick ads to power films like “Suicide Squad” to big openings. But this time the studio had the creative goods: “Fantastic Beasts” received a “certified fresh” score on the Rotten Tomatoes review-aggregation site. At the weekend’s start, it was unclear how Harry Potter fans would react to “Fantastic Beasts,” which Ms. Rowling (writing her first screenplay) based on her 2001 creature compendium of the same name — one of Harry Potter’s textbooks, as the mythology goes. But “Fantastic Beasts” does not feature any of the same central characters, and it takes place in 1926 New York instead of present-day Britain. Moviegoers appear to have accepted the leap. “Fantastic Beasts,” focused on a “magizoologist” named Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), received an overall A grade in CinemaScore exit polls, with attendees under 18 years old giving it an A-plus. “That speaks volumes about the future of this franchise — about reaching a new generation of fans,” Sue Kroll, Warner’s president of worldwide marketing and distribution, said by phone on Sunday morning. “We knew we had a lot to live up to with this movie,” continued Ms. Kroll, fresh off a plane from China, where “Fantastic Beasts” will roll out in the days ahead. “People have enormously warm memories of those earlier Harry Potter movies. So we are very, very happy with the way that audiences responded to this completely fresh and original story. We are now set up beautifully for a very long run.” Even so, Warner faced some Hollywood snark over the weekend, with one trade news site questioning whether the initial “Fantastic Beasts” results were strong enough to warrant the four sequels that Ms. Rowling and the studio have planned. Some rival studio executives pointed out that “Doctor Strange,” from Disney-owned Marvel Studios, recently managed $85 million in opening-weekend ticket sales. “Fantastic Beasts” couldn’t match the heights of a B-list comic book character? Ms. Rowling’s new wizards and witches also faced inevitable comparisons with the eight Harry Potter movies that Warner released between 2001 and 2011. The lowest opening among those films — each adapted from a smash-hit novel — was for “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which collected about $90 million (after adjusting for inflation) over its first three days in North American theaters. Those poking holes in the domestic turnout for “Fantastic Beasts” may be underappreciating the difficulty that Warner faced, including the extreme pressure to live up to fan expectations. Continuing a movie series without the central characters is almost always a recipe for disaster — 20th Century Fox’s failed effort to bring back the “Independence Day” franchise without Will Smith, for instance, or DreamWorks Animation’s futile effort to spin off a “Madagascar” movie with only the penguins. Still, the weeks ahead will be crucial for “Fantastic Beasts.” To retain prime theaters, Newt and his wizarding pals will need to hold their own at the box office against expected behemoths like the animated “Moana,” which arrives on Wednesday, and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” scheduled for release on Dec. 16. (As a cinematic endeavor, “Rogue One” has similarities to “Fantastic Beasts.” It is set in the “Star Wars” world, but classic heroes will be absent. Darth Vader pops up, though.) Part of Warner’s goal with “Fantastic Beasts” was to reposition Ms. Rowling’s wizarding world as a limitless movie universe. Ms. Kroll’s team introduced the first trailer for the new film last December. Five more trailers and featurettes followed. Marketing also included extensive partnerships with Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Google, Amazon and China’s Weibo. It was a delicate line to walk: Warner used snippets of music from the original Harry Potter movies and invoked the boy wizard’s name in certain marketing materials, but was careful not to create overt connections that did not exist in the movie — something that studios often do with franchise spinoffs, much to the displeasure of fans. “Harry Potter” has been a reliable cash cow for Warner, which recently struck a deal with NBCUniversal worth up to $250 million for television rights to the old “Harry Potter” movies and new “Fantastic Beasts” chapters. Warner also controls theme park rights, licensing the “Harry Potter” characters and imagery to Universal properties in California, Florida and Japan. Substantial merchandising efforts are planned around the future “Fantastic Beasts” movies, the studio’s chief executive, Kevin Tsujihara, has said. Ms. Rowling’s publisher, Scholastic, also expects a “Fantastic Beasts” bump. The screenplay, for instance, was published in book form on Friday. “Any new story from J. K. Rowling is an event, lifting sales and interest in the backlist books,” Ellie Berger, president of Scholastic Trade, said in a phone interview last week. More than 450 million copies of Ms. Rowling’s books have been sold worldwide. The “Fantastic Beasts” screenplay, Ms. Berger said, should deliver “strong, sustained” sales. “We know there is just tremendous interest,” she added. Three other movies arrived in wide release at domestic theaters over the weekend, and each was trampled. “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (Sony) took in a breathtakingly low $930,000 at 1,176 theaters. Directed by Ang Lee and adapted from Ben Fountain’s novel, “Billy Lynn” cost an estimated $40 million to make. Overseas ticket sales may cushion the blow for Sony and its financing partners — a bit — and Sony has been credited with trying to push technological boundaries with the film. But there is no way around it: “Billy Lynn” is a hall-of-fame box-office misfire. Also bombing was “Bleed for This” (Open Road), a boxing drama starring Miles Teller that collected just $2.4 million. Open Road paid a reported $4 million for distribution rights. Faring slightly better was “The Edge of Seventeen” (STX), a teenage comedic drama starring Hailee Steinfeld and produced by James L. Brooks on a slim budget of $9 million. It arrived to $4.8 million in ticket sales. |