The Harry Potter franchise was once Warner Bros.' biggest draw, with many comic book fans blaming its success on the DCU not being a priority for the studio during that period.
Regardless, it's been a long time since the final movie was released in 2011, and since then, we've seen the studio launch a prequel/spin-off series with the Fantastic Beasts movies. Unfortunately, that's proven to be something of a letdown for those who eat, sleep, and breathe all things Potter.
While Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was undeniably fun, the sequels suffered from a major decline in quality despite being written by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. The latest instalment, The Secrets of Dumbledore, tried putting Hogwarts front and centre and attempted some damage control in an effort to get the series back on the right track after that baffling - and quickly retconned - Dumbledore family reveal.
It didn't really work and while there were once plans for at least two more movies to conclude this story, filmmaker David Yates has confirmed that they've fallen by the wayside.
When Yates was asked if he'd return for a fourth instalment, he responded: "Do you know I started on 'Potter' in 2005? It's been an amazing journey, and we made the last one, 'The Secrets of Dumbledore,' through the pandemic, pre-vaccine. So we were shooting that movie without vaccines, and it took its toll, it was tough 'ol ride to get it all together."
"Huge affection, and a lovely group of people that I worked with, and I love all of them, but we haven't had a conversation since we finished it," the filmmaker added. "It's been about, 'Let's just park it and let's be done for awhile,' so never say never, I would say, but I'm very excited about moving on..."
With a Harry Potter TV series (which will reboot the franchise) on the horizon, it's obvious we aren't going to see what happened when Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald squared off. We know enough to fill in the gaps, but abandoning the story does a real disservice to Newt Scamander, in particular.
The moment this prequel series moved away from the Magizoologist, it started going downhill, and we'll forever look at the franchise and wonder, "How much more successful would it have been had they kept the spotlight on those Fantastic Beasts?"