‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ Tops, but ‘Widows’ Tells a Sad Story

When a film opens to over $60 million like “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” you could call it the top story and go from there.

However, there’s just as much interest in the opening-weekend subplots provided by “Widows,” “Instant Family,” and “Green Book.” These results are not encouraging; in the cases of “Widows” and “Green Book,” the implications are frightening.At $170 million, this weekend will be down about 15 percent from last year.

While “Fantastic Beasts” provided a strong franchise, it turns out “Justice League” was 50 percent more popular.

Last year had the surprise initial success of “Wonder,” which opened to $27.5 million.“Grindelwald” is the smallest opening for a film from J.K.

Rowling’s universe of wizards.

It’s disappointing at 19 percent less (adjusted), but Warners will be buttressed by the film’s overseas performance of $191 million this weekend (Japan still to come).

But with a lower start and 16 percent second-day drop,

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