Mads Mikkelsen admits Johnny Depp could return to Fantastic Beasts franchise

Mads Mikkelsen admits that Johnny Depp could return as Gellert Grindelwald in any further entries in the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

In 2016, Depp entered the Harry Potter universe after being cast as evil wizard Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.

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He would reprise the role in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, released in 2018.

Depp was set to complete the trilogy by appearing in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. However, due to his well-publicised defamation trial with ex-wife Amber Heard, producers made the decision to replace him as Grindelwald.

In November of 2020, Mikkelsen was confirmed as his replacement, but now that Depp's name has cleared, of sorts, after winning the trial against Heard, the Danish actor concedes that Depp might return.

“It was very intimidating,” he said of replacing Depp at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

“Obviously, well, now the course has changed – he won the suit, the court – so let’s see if he comes back. He might.

“I’m a big fan of Johnny. I think he’s an amazing actor. I think he did a fantastic job. Having said that, I could not copy it. There’s there was no way I could just copy it, because it’s so much him. It would be creative suicide.

"So, we had to come up with something else, something that was mine, and build a bridge between him and me.

"So, yes, it was intimidating. His fans were very, very sweet, but they were also very stubborn. I didn’t interact too much with them, but I could understand why they had their hearts broken."

How many Fantastic Beasts movies will there be?

Though originally envisioned as a trilogy, Harry Potter author J.K Rowling has said that there will be five entries in the franchise.

“We always knew that it was going to be more than one movie — we knew that from the start — so we set a trilogy as a sort of placeholder, because we knew there would be more than one movie, “ Rowling at a Warner Bros. event in London.

”But I’ve now done the plotting properly, so we’re pretty sure it’s going to be five movies.”