Part three of the Harry Potter prequel series had better have some good tricks up its sleeve or the future of this tarnished franchise will be in doubt
The news this week that the latest instalment in the Fantastic Beasts saga will be titled The Secrets of Dumbledore has been met with a chorus of meh across the geekosphere. The general consensus seems to be that after 2018’s misfiring sequel, The Crimes of Grindelwald, these magical mysteries better be up there with the recipe for KFC if Warner Bros want fans to tune back in for part three.
It’s a pity, because JK Rowling’s venture into fantasy screenwriting promised so much. Freed from the structures of her Harry Potter novels, with their Malory Towers on magical Kool-Aid veneer, she wrote an opener, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, that offered an enticing vision of the wizarding world’s recent history. Even the Crimes of Grindelwald, for all its muddled, often strangely meaningless plotting and messy characterisation, boasted an enduring sorcerous sparkle.