Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, described the process of replacing Johnny Depp as "chaotic."
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mikkelsen addressed the changeover, revealing producers only gave him two days to decide if he wanted to replace Depp. In that time, he watched the first two Fantastic Beasts films and read through the script for Secrets of Dumbledore. "It was quite chaotic," Mikkelsen said. "You don’t want to copy anything [Depp was] doing — that would be creative suicide. Even if [a role has] been done to perfection, you want to make it your own. But you still have to build some sort of bridge between what came before."
Depp, who played Grindelwald in 2016's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and 2018's Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, departed Secrets of Dumbledore among controversy stemming from his divorce from actor Amber Heard and accusations of abuse against him.
Mikklesen is an actor best-known for his works in such films as 2006's Casino Royale, 2012's The Hunt and as Kaecilius in 2016's Doctor Strange. He also played Hannibal Lecter on NBC's Hannibal, which ran from 2013 until 2015. He's received a number of high-profile nominations for his work.
The Secrets of Dumbledore sees the titular wizard, played by Jude Law, tasking Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and his allies with investigating Grindelwald's growing army. At the time of writing, The Secrets of Dumbledore holds a 55 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes it the second-highest reviewed of the three Fantastic Beasts films. The original movie holds a 74 percent on the review aggregator, while The Crimes of Grindelwald has a 36 percent. Still, that score puts The Secrets of Dumbledore behind all of the films in the Harry Potter franchise.
It's not clear at this time if there will be a sequel to Secrets of Dumbledore, and Warner Bros. greenlighting Fantastic Beasts 4 reportedly depends on the movie's performance. Current box office projections put Secrets of Dumbledore's domestic total at between $100 and $140 million, which indicates an uphill battle for the movie. Secrets of Dumbledore's international opening also only brought in $58 million across 22 markets.
Directed by David Yates from a script by J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore releases wide on April 15.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter