The latest chapter of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World gets underway today with the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and THR is reporting that the Harry Potter spinoff looks set for a magical $200 million opening worldwide.
In the States, the film is expected to comfortably fend off competition from The Edge of Seventeen, Bleed for This and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk to top the box office with between $70 – $80 million, which is around the same figure as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, both of which debuted with $77 million.
The $180-million budgeted Fantastic Beasts is the first instalment of a new five-film series, all of which are being written by J.K. Rowling and directed by David Yates. Be sure to read our review of the film here, and check out our exclusive interviews with Yates and stars Ezra Miller and Dan Fogler here.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident…were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” stars Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”), Katherine Waterston (“Steve Jobs,” “Inherent Vice”) as Tina; Tony Award winner Dan Fogler (“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”) as Jacob; Alison Sudol (“Dig,” “Transparent”) as Tina’s sister, Queenie; Ezra Miller (“Trainwreck”) as Credence; two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton (“In America,” “Sweet and Lowdown”) as Mary Lou; Oscar winner Jon Voight (“Coming Home,” TV’s “Ray Donovan”) as Henry Shaw, Sr.; Ron Perlman (the “Hellboy” films) as Gnarlack; Carmen Ejogo (“Selma”) as Seraphina; Jenn Murray (“Brooklyn”) as Chastity; young newcomer Faith Wood-Blagrove as Modesty; and Colin Farrell (“True Detective”) as Percival Graves.
