According to NBC News, the film, which is the third of the Harry Potter prequels, debuted with a $43 million opening weekend. Despite topping the box office, it fell way short of the $74 million opening of 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and the $62 million opening of 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. That is the franchise’s worst start in years, and it has had its fair share of terrible luck in previous years.
“We’ve seen the grosses edge downward with each of the Fantastic Beasts films, [but] this is still another in a long line of No. 1 debuts for films in that orbit in the Harry Potter universe,” said analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore.
The franchise’s worst start comes amid ongoing outrage over author J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender people, as well as Johnny Depp’s departure as Grindelwald following domestic violence charges, which he has denied. Mads Mikkelsen has since taken Depp’s spot. Ezra Miller, another of the film’s actors, has lately been in the news when a couple in Hawaii accused him of threatening them. In Hawaii, he was also detained on allegations of disorderly behavior and harassment.
Still, it was enough to beat off Sonic the Hedgehog, which came in second with $30 million in its second week in North America, and Michael Bay’s Ambulance, which took in $4 million. Sonic 2 had the highest American box office debut of any video game film in history last week, with $71 million.