The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third installment in the Fantastic Beasts film franchise and the lucky eleventh Wizarding World movie, opens today in North America with its essential success-or-fail market in the theaters of the United States. It is also Holy Friday on the Gregorian Calendar, a day of obligation in the Roman Catholic Church and which Magisterial Reformation protestants also observe. I doubt that this choice to open on Easter weekend will affect box office totals significantly; traditional Christians who consider Pascha a feast day above all others, to include Christmas, are not a significant percentage of the American population and are an invisible quantity in movie fandom. If anything, the freedom of students attending schools that still plan their Spring vacations around these holy days may boost the attendance.

I am, in addition to the most edifying and challenging church services of the year, up against several writing deadlines which preclude my taking in Secrets until after Pascha, the Sunday after Western Easter this year. The other staff members, faculty and adjunct, here at HogwartsProfessor will be leading the conversation on these pages about the new movie, sort of a Rowling product (but not really?), in the coming week, discussion in which I trust our international collection of Serious Readers will join.

For today, though, I want to turn the microphone around to this audience and ask you for your answers to the following seven questions:

(1) When and where did you see Secrets of Dumbledore?

(2) Was the theater full, empty, excited, subdued? What was the audience reaction to the film where you saw it?

(3) What was the best part of the film, the scene or sequence that is the take-away you will treasure and re-visit?

(4) What was the worst part of the film, the bit you thought, “Well, that should satisfy [x or y group] Warner Brothers felt it had to appease”?

(5) What were the best and worst performances by the ensemble of actors and actresses? Did the newcomers Exceed Expectations? Any Trolls? Was the new Grindelwald a step up or down from the bizarro Depp interpretation?

(6) What line of dialogue or story twist made you think, “Oh, that’s from Rowling; no way Steve Kloves came up with that beauty”?

(7) Assuming the five movie cycle is a ring, Secrets of Dumbledore is the story-turn or pivot that should reflect the first film and foreshadow the finale. What echoes did you hear of the New York City based Fantastic Beasts? What is the core question or drama the next two films must resolve the way Voldemort’s re-incarnation in Goblet’s Hangleton Graveyard set the storyline of Prince and Hallows?

Please don’t worry about spoilers in writing up your answers. Everyone who reads the comment thread will have already seen the movie or not give a fig (or apple) about learning the plot points in advance. Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts — and feel free, if you’d rather write a review than answer questions, to share whatever it is you like. I confess to looking forward to this conversation and exchange of ideas more than seeing the movie…

Fantastic Beasts 3: Secrets of Dumbledore opened last Wednesday in Belgium and Holland and this Friday and Saturday, in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Japan, Spain, and in China.  With 22 markets open and 44 to come next week with the big domestic roll-out in the US on Friday 15 April — Good Friday in a theater! Holy Abraham Lincoln, Warner Brothers! — the bean counters have begun to tally up a score in dollars from ticket sales to compare Secrets of Dumbledore with Crimes of Grindelwald and other Wizarding World entries.

Variety reports that the film is not doing very well — but that there are significant mitigating factors: [Read more…]

Patricio Tarantino, author of Secret History of the Wizarding Phenomenon and founder (Wizard in Chief) of TheRowlingLibrary.com, is that rarest of rare birds, a Potter Pundit, collector, and fan who is admired and respected by academics, fandom leaders and hoi polloi, and even Rowling, Inc. He was invited from his secret hide-out beneath Tarantino Manor to join the Premiere Press Posse in London and he made the trans-Atlantic trip and had a moment on the Red Carpet. 

And he has posted his review of Secrets of Dumbledore at TheRowlingLibrary.com.

I have been excited by the trailers, frankly, and have been a little concerned by several of the reviews that are up at Rotten Tomatoes (where the film is showing only a 65% positive rating with more than 250 entries) that once again I have been duped by a creative trailer packaging team. Turns out, I have been duped but not the way you might think…and Mr. Tarantino thinks I will enjoy the movie if I keep in mind one thing. Which I’ll share after the jump! [Read more…]