DarkSkies

Yates should go if only because he must be tired of the WW by now. It'd be nice to see him working on something else. Apparently his next film begins shooting this month. He's a good director, so that should be interesting. I don't get why people think changing directors is going to make a difference, though. The major problems with this series are with Rowling. As a writer, she's too big to challenge. I suspect any film maker just has to accommodate her issues.

Not a great reception, though I'm honestly skeptical that the film is as confusing as some critics make out. I do kind of wonder if this is it for the Fantastic Beast series; if it gets a mediocre critical reception (it's feeling lukewarm at the moment) and the audience don't turn up for it... we'll see. I'm shocked that one misfire film could be so damaging to a long-running series.

When does the embargo lift? Is it tomorrow?

WB are probably trying to get him on board for a DC project... As I said, he had a lot of projects lined up and they were quite diverse: a mental health drama with Emma Watson, a WWII film, a murder mystery set in the Old West, an Al Capone biopic. But they all seemed to go silent when studios got really big into franchises. His next film is with Sony, interestingly enough. I recall him saying in an interview around COG release that he had a lot of projects 'in development' that had nothing to do with wizards. Guess we'll see where he goes.

IIRC Yates had a lot of projects lined up at the start of 2010, but they all seemed to have fallen by the wayside when the studios wanted to focus more on tentpoles.

Interesting quote from Yates from an Italian Film magazine: Found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FantasticBeasts/comments/tuod2k/david_yeats_talked_about_the_next_installments/

Isn't this why Marty Scorsese railed against them a few years ago? They push a really binary thinking onto film criticism.

Actually really cool clip here:

IIRC WB approached her about a Fantastic Beasts movie starring Newt, Rowling said she had something better and I gues it was tying Newt into Dumbledore/Grindelwald's conflict. I think the firt film played well enough, COG was all over the place and we'll see how SOD goes.

Dinner clip

Very cool featurette.

I actually liked several scenes in COG. The opening sequence was good and I liked the flashbacks in Hogwarts, which were quite touching. Grindelwald's Rally and the fire scene were also excellent. Depp and Law were both good, and there were some very inventive magical ideas in there. The script was just... all over the place with a lot of it feeling underdeveloped, underexplored, or just limp set-up for later films (Flamel, Nagini). I think SOD looks good so far. I've liked both clips. If the narrative if more focused it should - should - garner more positivity. I think...

Room of Requirement clip:

First clip released:

A new featurette from Japan

New footage in a Chinese TV spot The dinner party scene looks cool.

No idea what the story will be like, though hopefully tighter than COG, still there's a lot of very interesting things in the trailer. Looks like the beasts have a more prominent role here. The fight scenes look very creative. Some interesting shots as well: Dumbledore in the burning cafe, that one where the camera rotates and they come out of the reflections on a wet street, Grindelwald's symbol being shot into the sky. Scale looks impressive. Hoping it turns out good, or even great. Excited to see Law and Mikkelsen acting together.

I like the poster too. I'm curious what kind of role the phoenix will have.

I genuinely forget these films are even being made. I say that as someone who thought the first Avatar was really cool when it came out. I'm hoping we get something soonish because I'm curious what a tech-wizard like Cameron has been doing for about a decade now.

The Secrets of Dumbledore trailer makes me think this could have been a very solid trilogy about the fall of Grindelwald with Dumbledore's epic battle as the climax and Newt as his sidekick, but somewhere in production Rowling wanted to do Voldemort's rise as well and now there's a real disconnected feeling where COG set up stuff that's not gonna be necessary until film 4 or even 5 (Nagini, Flamel, Lestranges) so it all feels a bit pointless as is. As for the next film, well, I think it looks pretty good. I think the aesthetics look good and the scale looks impressive. Is that the Hogwarts Express? It has a very unique feel to it in the trailer, almost mystery-esque. The various locations look great. The Shrimp-creature scene looks funny. It seems a bit more lighthearted than the previous film, though I suspect it'll start off that way and get darker as it goes along. Yates is a good director, IMO, and he's kinda doing the heavy lifting on this series. The second film's script was messy, but it had some excellent scenes (the opening escape, the rally). Hopefully this is better - we'll see in a few months.