Friend of this weblog and frequent contributor Kelly Loomis sent me a picture last month of Dan Fogler. She wrote: “Fogler at LeakyCon – he just came from the Walking Dead set. Doesn’t even look like his former dumpling self. He confirmed that filming for Fantastic Beasts 3 will begin in February 2020. How will his weight loss affect his character?”

Three thoughts:

(1) The less we think about the actors in films, the better. Dan Fogler and Ezra Miller are perfect examples of why this is such a good principle; both are risibly self-important and uninformed — and nothing either of them says contributes to our understanding of the story being told or how it might unfold.

(2) A Skinny Jacob Kowalski is not a problem: I have to suspect Mr Fogler is more than capable of regaining the weight he has lost for ‘Walking Dead’ if he so desired; the American holiday season is a gift to anyone wanting to pack on pounds. If he wants to remain relatively svelte, the fat suit fitters and cosmetic scientists at Warner Brothers are equal to the task.

(3) Maybe Jacob loses weight in Fantastic Beasts 3: We’re assuming that Fogler lost the weight for ‘Walking Dead’ and that this presents a problem because he plays a fat baker in the Beasts movie. we could, however, read this weight loss as a clue to the transformation he is to undergo in coming films. There has already been one magical parasite in the movies. Perhaps Jacob Kowalski is infected, enchanted, or imprisoned in Beasts 3 and loses that chubby persona — back to the fighting weight he was in as a doughboy in the WWI trenches.

Forgive me for the minute of your life you have lost to perusing this speculation! Feel free to chide me for violating the principle in (1) above and please do share your thoughts about Skinny Jacob if you are so moved.

If you had to choose the single biggest problem with Crimes of Grindelwald, the one thing that caused movie-goers to leave the theater saying “What just happened?” in frustration rather than curiosity, I think a good choice among too many options would be the Leta Lestrange story as told in the second Fantastic Beasts film. Go back and read the first ‘Crimes of Grindelwald: Deleted Scenes‘ post here at HogwartsProfessor. In that post you get Kelly Loomis’ initial look at the scenes we had been shown before the movie’s release that didn’t make the final cut, i.e., the shooting script elements that were edited out of the released film. As I wrote at the time:

Leta Lestrange is the Star of the Shooting Script: Go ahead and count the scenes about Leta’s character that don’t make it into the final cut.

• There’s the dance scene filmed in the same blue light as the Ampitheater finale (I assume where she meets Theseus or makes contact with Grindelwald’s gang, a parallel that explains Gellert’s conversation with her before she blasts his skull-hookah).
• And the pub scene with Newt and Theseus, in which I guess Theseus asks him to be his best man and they touch on their shared love for the same woman.
• And the Dumbledore conversation with Minerva McGonagall, in which I’m guessing they talk about Leta’s time at Hogwarts.
• Leta and Theseus have a good talk at Hogwarts, too, but we miss out on that which empties their French Ministry exchange of context.
• And the battle scene with the Ministry cats.
• And her full flashback scene in the Mausoleum.

As it is, Leta’s story is truncated and her telling, “I love you” to both Newt and Theseus in the climactic battle leaves viewers saying, “Huh?” Her tale of the Corvus Lestrange death on the ship seems to come out of nowhere even with the boggart set-up — and we get hardly a clue about her supposed “wickedness” or relationship with Dumbledore or Grindelwald before she disappears in the Amphitheater flames (my guess is that she is the character to whom Rowling is referring when she says what you think you thought you saw ain’t what happened). Leta was robbed and we all suffered for her fate in the editing of the shooting script’s film.

Frankly, I hope so and there are two or three encouraging signs in this regard. First, it looks like Zoe Kravitz may have been signed to film new scenes in Beasts 3: Zoe Kravitz Rumored to be Returning. That could, of course, just be for flashback scenes akin to the memories of Hogwarts we got in Crimes of Grindelwald. It could, though, mean that she didn’t die and the two David’s will have another shot at giving us Rowling’s story as written rather than “fitting the woman to the dress,” the corset of Warner Brothers blockbuster formula and time restrictions.

Hat-tip to Lana for sharing this find!