Sandy Kenyon reviews ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’

This amount includes the $8.8 million that it collected from its showing on Thursday night. At the rate the movie is going, it stands to rake in $75 million in its opening.

Fantastic Beasts, the story written by J.K. Rowling as a prequel to the Harry Potter saga, has taken a staggering £67.4m at the box office during the film adaptation’s opening weekend. The plot follows magizoologist Newt Scamander’s NY adventures when he scrambles to find the magical creatures that accidentally escaped from his deceivingly large brief case.

Redmayne is in splendid form and there’s quite a smattering of fellow British actors, such as Katherine Waterston and Samantha Morton.

It’s easy to sell audiences on Harry Potter, but selling them on Newt Scamander may be another story.

Redmayne underplays Newt in many respects as nearly a proto-Doctor from Doctor Who; a soft-spoken, slightly awkwardly, kindly wizard soul more interested in the care & preservation of the eponymous fantastic beasts than battles between good and evil. The way it goes, it is raking in millions of dollars in its USA opening. He has an incredible sense of whimsy and curiosity, flawless for this man who has taken a trip to the United States to set one of his fantastic beasts free.

The third weekend of DreamWorks Animation’s “Trolls”, distributed by Fox, looks likely to wind up runner-up with $15 million, edging the third frame of Disney-Marvel’s “Doctor Strange” with about $13.5 million. The sci-fi mindbender “Arrival” took fourth with $11.8 million, while the themed comedy “Almost Christmas” rounded out the top five with $7 million.

The movie, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as neurosurgeon Stephen Strange – whose life changes forever after a horrific auto accident robs him of use of his hands – is the 14th film in Disney’s “Marvel Cinematic Universe”.

Other more modestly budgeted films also struggled, including the R-rated high school comedy “The Edge of Seventeen”, which earned $4.8 million, and the fact-based boxing drama “Bleed for This”, which took in $2.4 million. Critics have embraced “Seventeen” with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The beasts dreamt up by Rowling truly are fantastic and it’s a blast watching Newt and his friends figure out ways to outsmart and capture them.

Disney’s “Moana”, an animated musical about Polynesian legends and demigods, opens on Wednesday. We’ll find out in due time. “He was always very clever and we’ll see what I believe is the formative period of his life”.