Fantastic Beasts: Mads Mikkelsen replaces Johnny Depp

Culture & Entertainment
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2021-01-25

Mads Mikkelsen is to replace Johnny Depp as rogue wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts series, Warner Bros have announced.

Depp left the franchise earlier this month after losing a libel case over a 2018 newspaper article which called him a “wife beater”.

Mikkelsen, a Danish actor, has previously starred in films including Casino Royale and Doctor Strange. The third instalment of the series is due to be released in summer 2022.

Mikkelsen, 54, also appeared in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and played Hannibal Lecter in the TV series Hannibal.

The announcement came not long after Depp was denied permission to appeal against the High Court’s ruling, which concluded that he assaulted his ex-wife Amber Heard. The actor has also been ordered to make an initial payment to the publisher of the Sun, News Group Newspapers, of almost £630,000 for its legal fees.

Depp made a brief appearance as Grindelwald in 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and reprised his role in 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

The films also star Eddie Redmayne and Jude Law and are prequels to the eight Harry Potter films, which were based on the novels by JK Rowling.

Today's Vocabulary

1. rogue (adj.)
behaving in ways that are not expected or not normal, often in a way that causes damage

2. wizard (n)
a man who is believed to have magical powers and who uses them to harm or help other people

3. franchise (n)
a right to sell a company’s products in a particular area using the company’s name

4. libel (n)
a piece of writing that contains bad and false things about a person

5. appeal (n)
a request made to a court of law or to someone in authority to change a previous decision

6. prequel (n)
a movie, book, or play that develops the story of an earlier movie, etc. by telling you what happened before the events in the first movie, etc

QUESTIONS
  1. Why does Johnny Depp leave the franchise?

  2. Who is Mads Mikkelsen?

  3. How much will Johnny Depp have to pay to the publisher of the Sun?

  4. What will be the role of Mikkelsen in the movie Fantastic Beast?
DISCUSSION
  1. What is your all-time favorite movie?

  2. What genres of movies do you like?

  3. Are sequels ever as good as the original? Give examples of good sequels if you can.

  4. Does watching movies in English help you learn English? Would you recommend this method to language students?

  5. Do you mind reading subtitles when you watch a foreign language film, or would you prefer it to be dubbed into your own language?