by Patrick Gratton
Understandably lost during the fog created of election week, on Friday afternoon Johnny Depp took to his Instagram page, announcing that he was stepping down from the role of Grindlewald. The Warner Bros’ Harry Potter spin-off franchise, the Fantastic Beast series is no without a villain. Depp claims that the move comes at Warner Bros request following his failed libel suit against News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the tabloid magazine The Sun, over allegations that Depp abused ex-wife Amber Heard.
The news comes after a tumultuous year for the Potterverse. Not just for Depp, whose years of litigation with ex-wife Amber Heard and whose substance abuse has made him tabloid fodder...
Depp's letter to his fans
The franchise’s original author, J.K. Rowling has been under fire with her frequent transphobic remarks. As the discourse continued Rowling doubled down on her rhetoric and pushed it in even uglier directions, to the point where she published her novel Troubled Blood, which unburied the age-old stereotype of transgendered serial killers.
All in all, it isn’t a great time for the Harry Potter franchise.
Rowling’s already cancelled (or on the verge of being so), the spinoff series has lost favor amongst its fanbase and critics alike after Crimes of Grindelwald failed to meet expectations, and the franchise’s meal ticket - a possible original cast reunion in the form of a film adaptation of the stage hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - seems all the more out of reach. Where does the Wizarding World go next? TIME magazine has already issued an op-ed asking the question whether the franchise outgrew itself and whether its time for the Potter clan to back up and leave. The fanbase however, are already petitioning to bring back Colin Farrell, a highlight from the first Fantastic Beast film when he played the villain role before the Grindelwald reveal.
It’s unfair to label Depp’s casting as the franchise’s biggest hurdle, nor is it fair to applaud Warner Bros for the decision to let him go. The allegations surrounding Depp had been prevalent and this late dismissal is three years too late to feel genuine. Warner Bros aren’t the heroes here, nor will the casting change fix the increasingly rotten structure. The franchise is grappling with an identity crisis. Rowling’s fixation on centering this franchise on Redmayne’s magical Dr. Doolittle and his band of misfits is disjointed and miscalculated.
The meat of the story lies elsewhere. It lies with Credence (Ezra Miller), the tormented other-cum-queer boy allegory figure, and with Dumbledore (Jude Law) and Grindelwald’s battle for his soul. Potter lore speaks of Grindelwald’s talent as a master seducer, including Dumbledore himself. So why is the film depicting the character in an asexual fashion? If nothing more, the Crime of Grindelwald begs to be a Shakespearian tragedy of two age-old lovers dueling with the fate of the world in its balance, but it often resorts to CGI animal slapstick humor. Despite bringing on Grindelwald as its central villain, the film sidelines or even forgets the pivotal Credence-Grindelwald dynamic. The second instalments fails to capitalize the first’ brooding chemistry between the two, as played by Farrell under disguise. Depp and Miller barely share any scenes together, and Credence returning into Grindelwald’s fold is dealt with mostly off screen.
Having Farrell sparring against Law’s Dumbledore might patch up the rough edges. Farrell plays mostly into the queer subtext of his character, while Depp runs away from it. Making the villain eternally queer might be too big of a heavy burden for a kid friendly franchise film. Maybe the wizarding world can’t bring itself to bring outwardly contextualized queer people, especially since Dumbledore’s orientation in the book series was merely treated as an appendix rather then the shape of the character. But wouldn’t this be the most opportune time to change the tide on queer representation in tentpole cinema? Don’t the LGBT community deserve more than a fan servicy Sulu blink and you miss it same-sex kiss. Maybe Warner Bros should go beyond and cast an LGBT actor in the role. Someone like Lee Pace, Luke Evans or even possibly Rupert Everett? Or will this casting choice seem disingenuous considering Rowling’s recent stance on transgendered people?
Who do you want to see recast in the role of Grindelwald?