Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opened this past weekend and now another chapter for the wizarding world is in the books, earning an impressive $75 million. There was never any doubt that Fantastic Beasts would open strong and claim the number one spot, but it didn’t hit quite as high as Box Office Mojo had originally predicted at $90M.
To be clear, $75M is great, matching all industry expectations. The $90M mark was set counting on a younger audience to see the film, but only 18% of the audience this weekend for Fantastic Beasts was under 18 years of age, while 55% was over the age of 35. These numbers, according to Box Office Mojo, suggest fans of the original Harry Potter franchise showed up, while the younger generation did not.
The film scored well with audiences, but it is worth mentioning that this is the lowest opening for any J.K. Rowling film. Fantastic Beasts‘ estimates are comparable to Order of the Pheonix ($77.1M) and Half-Blood Prince ($77.8M), both in the end earning $292 million and $301 million. It’s safe to assume Fantastic Beasts could hit the anywhere from $275-$280 million domestically.
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