Box Office: ‘Fantastic Beasts 2’ Repeated the Key Mistake of ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald earned $11.2 million (-62%) in its third weekend to bring its 17-day domestic total to $134.2m. The film is falling fast in North America and China while kicking at least a little butt overseas. That’s a bigger fourth-weekend drop than Justice League, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and the last two Twilight sequels. At a glance, we’re probably looking at a domestic finish of around $160m. The extent that it has fallen compared to the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ($234m) in direct comparison to X-Men: Apocalypse ($155m compared to $233m for X-Men: Days of Future Past) is deeply ironic.