Trivia / Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

• California Doubling: Just like the other two films, the movie was filmed entirely in England with sets made to double for China, Germany, Bhutan, and the US. According to Redmayne, they were supposed to film on location for the first time in the series in Brazil but this was cut and re-worked to Bhutan due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
• Delayed Release Tie-In: An exhibit in partnership with the Natural History Museum in London opened for what was the first release date in late 2020, a year and a half before the film came out.
• Deleted Scene:
  • According to the Portus fansite, there was an alternative version of the restaurant scene where instead of storming out right away, Grindelwald actually leaned down and whispered something in Dumbledore’s ear and then kissed him on the neck before he left.
  • Other sites showed footage of Albus visiting Credence in Nurmengard and Queenie attempting to escape.
  • The ones included on the home release included one of Dumbledore receiving a letter from Newt about finding the Qilin, a scene in Newt's house between him and Theseus when the former gets back from China, Lalie and Jacob getting their wands checked at the party in Berlin, and lastly a scene with Vogel in Nurmengard that happens right before the Qilin is zombified.
• Distanced from Current Events: The film's second trailer was delayed a few days from its previously announced February 24, 2022 date due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine that had begun the very same morning and monopolized worldwide attention.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: Both Alison Sudol and Victoria Yeates were pregnant during production. The tricks to hide their bellies include regular ones such as having them sit down, wearing dark/flowy clothes and big coats, and shooting them from behind and the chest up. While their bellies remain well hidden, it’s very noticeable in Sudol’s face at certain points, however. Her face is clearly much fuller in the scene where she and Jacob have their reunion in Bhutan than it is in the rest of the movie.
• The Other Darrin: A couple of dubs followed suit with the recast of Grindelwald, replacing Depp's regular VA with Mikkelsen's. The Japanese dub had Kazuhiko Inoue replace Hiroaki Hirata, while in the Latin American Spanish dub, Gerardo Reyero replaces Ricardo Tejedo and in the French dub Yann Guillemot replaces Bruno Choël. In a funny coincidence, this also makes him The Danza as Gellert and Gerardo are different versions of the same name and the character is called that in many translations.
• The Other Marty: Mads Mikkelsen replaced Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald shortly after production started due to Depp losing a lawsuit that found it was legally permissible to call him a “wife beater”.
• Promoted Fanboy: Jessica Williams had been a huge fan of the Harry Potter franchise for years before being cast as Lally.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: COVID-19 travel restrictions forced the location of Brazil to be re-worked into Bhutan. According to Redmayne, they were going to Brazil to film scenery that couldn’t be recreated on the lot at Leavesden during the winter production. The pandemic also forced out the character of Nagini since Claudia Kim was heavily pregnant when production began.
• Release Date Change: The film ended up going through three release dates. It was initially scheduled to be released on 12 November 2020 but it was delayed a full year to 12 November 2021 due to a re-write of the script and Katherine Waterston's pregnancy. COVID-19 Pandemic-induced productions delays forced the film's release back by another eight months to July 2022. However, it was announced after the reshoots wrapped up in September 2021 that the film was being pushed up to April 2022 due to the relatively smooth pace of production.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanour:
  • Johnny Depp was dropped from his role as Gellert Grindelwald shortly into production when he lost a libel lawsuit in November 2020 against a tabloid who called him a "wife beater" amidst his feud with ex-wife Amber Heard. His role was recast with Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.
  • Kevin Guthrie, who played Abernathy, was fired from the film sometime before it began production when he was charged with sexually assaulting a woman in 2017, for which he was found guilty in the spring of 2021. As a result, he did not come back for this film. Unlike Grindelwald who was recast, Abernathy does not appear nor is mentioned at all.
• Short Run in Peru: In a first for the franchise, the movie was released under a staggered model with the US coming later than other markets. The film opened in much of Europe and East Asia on April 8th 2022 and then followed up with some more European markets and the US the following week.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: A Russian tie-in book spoiled the plot point that Theseus gets arrested at the party in Berlin.
• Troubled Production:
  • The film was originally intended to go into production in mid-2019 but due to a re-write of the script and Katherine Waterston’s pregnancy, it was delayed until March 2020.
  • On the very day filming was supposed to begin in March 2020, Warner Bros. halted production when the COVID-19 Pandemic broke out. Filming didn't begin until late September. Once pandemic safety protocols were in place, the film did very well on keeping COVID-free (especially compared with The Batman which was filmed simultaneously at Leavesden), only one case had production shut down, for the entirety of the first week of February 2021. Production wrapped (by some miracle, on time) in mid-March 2021, a full year after it was supposed to start. Production went smoothly enough on the COVID end that WB was able to move the film up by three months.
  • By the time production resumed, three cast members (Claudia Kim, Victoria Yeates, and Alison Sudol) were pregnant. Kim was very far along and gave birth a few weeks later in Korea, and was written out of the movie due to the travel issues involved. Yeates and Sudol, who weren't far along when production started, just filmed pregnant and gave birth after the film wrapped.
  • The pandemic also forced out the previously announced location of Brazil since it was mentioned in the 2019 press release announcing production (after the re-write) and they were hiring Portuguese speaking extras in early 2020.
  • Once production started, Johnny Depp was fired during his third week on set when he lost a defamation case against a tabloid in the UK in relation to his abuse of Amber Heard. Although, supposedly WB had planned to fire him all along and he was quickly re-cast with Mads Mikkelsen, who had a free schedule since Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (which was his original project for 2020) was delayed almost another year as a pre-vaccine shoot was not in the cards due to Harrison Ford's age.

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