'Fantastic Beasts 3' gets official name and release date

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The third installment in J.K. Rowling’s "Harry Potter" spinoff "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" has set a release date of April 15, the studio said Wednesday. That’s Easter weekend next year for the pic, which now has a title: "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore."

Warners is moving up the movie from its previous July 15 slot. Remember, all event titles on the Warner Bros slate are purely theatrical next year, not day-and-date on HBO Max. Warner Bros already had Easter weekend on hold on the schedule for an untitled event movie.

Easter weekend has always been a vibrant period for Warner Bros with such notable box office debuts as "Batman v. Superman" ($166M), "Clash of the Titans" ($61.2M), "Ready Player One" ($47M) and most recently the movie that brought moviegoers back from the pandemic, "Godzilla v. Kong" (which made $48M over five days).

"Fantastic Beasts 3" will go up against DreamWorks Animation’s "The Bad Guys" via Universal, and Paramount’s Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum adventure movie "The Lost City of D." No word yet if those two studios will do something brazen and put both titles on streaming and in theaters day-and-date.

‘HARRY POTTER’ AND ‘FANTASTIC BEASTS’ DIRECTOR DAVID YATES SETS NEW FILM AT SONY AS NEXT PROJECT

Eddie Redmayne attends the European premiere of ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’ at Odeon Leicester Square on November 15, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage via Getty Images)

David Yates returns to direct "Fantastic Beasts 3."

JOHNNY DEPP AXED FROM ‘FANTASTIC BEASTS’ BY WARNER BROS AFTER ‘WIFE BEATER’ VERDICT IN UK; FILM DELAYED UNTIL 2022

Together both "Fantastic Beasts" movies have grossed a combined $1.46 billion worldwide. Altogether with the $7.7 billion made by the "Harry Potter" franchise, the Rowling Wizarding Universe counts close to $9.2B at the global box office.

In the "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" series, Eddie Redmayne plays Magizoologist Newt Scamander, a collector and tamer of mystical beasts, who makes his way through the secret wizard communities of New York, Paris and London during the late 1920s. The movies have also starred Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller and Dan Fogler.

MADS MIKKELSEN TO REPLACE JOHNNY DEPP IN ‘FANTASTIC BEASTS’ AS WARNER BROS CONFIRMS CASTING

Johnny Depp, who had portrayed villain Grindelwald in the franchise, was cut from the latest movie following allegations of being a "wife beater" per the UK courts last November. The part was recast with Mads Mikkelsen.