The Insane Amount Of Money Fantastic Beasts Could Earn This Weekend

Pretty much everyone expects Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them to become a hit. There's an insane amount of buzz surrounding the upcoming film, and it already has a massive built-in fan base due to the enduring popularity of the Harry Potter franchise. However, it now seems that Fantastic Beasts may exceed all expectations this coming weekend. The projections have begun to roll in, and it appears that Fantastic Beasts will make more money than one could possibly store in Gringotts Bank.

A report from Deadline indicates that the upcoming opening weekend for Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them has the potential to conjure up some serious cash. Based upon current projections, it appears that the first installment in the Harry Potter spin-off series could garner a massive $160-$205 million opening weekend gross. Broken down, this comes out to roughly $70-80 million at the North American box office, and around $90-125 million overseas. With minimal competition approaching in the near future, the film is generally expected to dominate the box office until the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story one month later.

Of course, as good as these projections are, it's still worth noting that Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is tracking for a lower opening weekend than the opening weekends for several of the Harry Potter films. This isn't necessarily surprising, as Fantastic Beasts (unlike Harry Potter) doesn't have any literary source material to prime potential audiences. It doesn't seem like Warner Bros. really minds that fact, though, as Fantastic Beasts is still poised to continue the successful tradition of the $7.7 billion Harry Potter franchise.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them takes the Harry Potter franchise into a wildly new direction by going deep into the past. Following the exploits of English Wizard Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) in 1920s New York, the film centers on his desperate struggle to recover his "fantastic beasts" that escape captivity and go on a rampage through the streets of the American city. Along the way he befriends a "No-Maj" named Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and attempts to elude capture by a high-ranking Auror named Percival Graves (Colin Farrell).