Earlier this year, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore opened to a mixed-to-negative response. The third installment in the Fantastic Beasts series, the Harry Potter prequel, The Secrets of Dumbledore was supposed to be followed by two more entries in the five-part series. However, after the poor box-office reception of this latest entry, the probability of Fantastic Beasts 4 going into production right away went down. Now, David Yates's work schedule may put the fourth film in the franchise on hold for much longer than anticipated.

Instead of working on Fantastic Beasts 4 (via ScreenRant), Yates is planning to finish directing the criminal-conspiracy film Pain Hustlers. Yates earlier has directed all the previous Fantastic Beasts films and even helmed five Harry Potter films starting from Order of the Phoenix. But after the previous film, Yates seems to be diverting his commitment toward someplace else.

The fact that there is no active script for Fantastic Beasts 4 further casts a shadow on its production. The studio had pinned the hopes of the franchise on The Secrets of Dumbledore and was only planning on working on the screenplay for the fourth if it gets successful at the box office. However, despite receiving better reviews than The Crimes of Grindelwald, the film made only $366 million against a $200 million production budget, while registering a major drop in ticket sales in its second weekend of release. That has made the studio question if the sequel could go on the floors.

Moreover, it’s possible that Yates wishes to try his hand at different projects. In his filmmaking career, Yates has directed only two films outside the Wizarding World franchise. And ever since he has taken over the franchise’s directorial duties, he has only worked on The Legend of Tarzan and the series Tyrant outside it. It’s possible that Yates will try to work on the fourth Fantastic Beasts film after Pain Hustlers as he had claimed earlier, but the poor reception of two consecutive films might make it a little difficult for the studio to produce another big-budget Wizarding World film.

Related: Fantastic Beasts 3: How The Secrets of Dumbledore Falls Short on LGBTQ+ Representation

The Secret of Dumbledore Kind of Concludes Several Arcs

Dumbledore and Grindelwald Secrets of Dumbledore
Via: Warner Bros. Pictures

Though the series still has two more films to go before it ends in a culminating battle between Mads Mikkelsen’s Grindelwald and Jude Law’s Albus Dumbledore; however, The Secrets of Dumbledore was an end to one of its phases.

In the film, Albus finds a way to break his blood pact with Grindelwald and engages him in a duel. Though the latter escapes, Albus finally unites Credence aka Aurelius Dumbledore with his father Aberforth. Turns out that Credence was not Dumbledore’s brother but nephew. The film also reunited Jacob and Queenie after the latter turned to Grindelwald in the previous film. It’s already established that Dumbledore eventually won against Grindelwald in 1945, which would still be almost a decade after the third film.

The film ended in a stalemate, but the final sequence suggested that the things might have come to peace for a little while. Fans would definitely love a proper conclusion to the story, but The Secrets of Dumbledore could be considered somewhat an end to it in case the fourth film never gets made.

Meanwhile, Yates’ next goes on the floors this year in August. Pain Hustlers is about a high school dropout, who helps a failing pharmaceutical startup to fly off in business, but finds herself at the dead center of a criminal conspiracy. Emily Blunt has been cast in the lead role for the film.