The latest film from the wizarding world of JK Rowling has unsurprisingly debuted at the top of the UK box office, knocking aside The Grinch. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’s opening weekend take of £12.32m is the second biggest of the year so far, behind only Avengers: Infinity War’s £21.1m haul (or £29.4m including previews).
A couple of other 2018 releases – Black Panther and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – posted bigger debut numbers than the wizard film, but only thanks to the inclusion of preview takings. On like-for-like comparison, The Crimes of Grindelwald opened bigger than those two films.
Any celebrations for backers Warner Bros will be muted by the fact that the second Fantastic Beasts film is running behind the pace of the first. Exactly two years ago, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them kicked off with a nifty £15.3m, on its way to a total of £54.7m. If The Crimes of Grindelwald follows the same pattern as its predecessor, look for it to reach around £44m by the end of its run.