Fans aren’t feeling too fantastic about Johnny Depp in ‘Fantastic Beasts’

If you had told me three years ago that Johnny Depp would be starring in a Harry Potter spinoff, I would have thought it was a match made in film heaven. (I also would have been pretty dang psyched that we were getting more Potter at all. Never give up, kids.)

Now, with the leak Tuesday evening that Depp will be cameo-ing in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them later this month and co-starring in the sequel, I'm not feeling so fantastic.

Some educated guesswork leads me and others to assume Depp will play noted Potter-verse Bad Guy Gellert Grindelwald, the Voldemort of the 1940s, although that hasn't been confirmed by the studio.

Whatever Depp's role is, the fact that he's on screen in the Potter-verse at all is disappointing. While everyone has their own valid threshold of tolerance for separating the art from the artist, Depp's domestic violence accusations that have come to light following his split from Amber Heard have forced many fans to see him through a different lens. It's a lens I'm bummed I have to consider at all in association with Potter, a family-friendly franchise that has thus far largely managed to avoid "problematic" discussions.

It's easy to imagine Warner Bros., which would have likely finalized this casting long before the Heard/Depp stuff became public, expecting total excitement about the news that a major movie star was going to be a big part of a worldwide tentpole. (When asked for comment about how Depp's current PR issues affect the film, a rep for the studio told Mashable it "[doesn't] comment on personal issues.") Now, instead of joy, the majority of the first thoughts on Twitter are more like

These are clearly instantaneous reactions, and audiences have a long history of basically ignoring the personal problems of celebrities, particularly men, when it comes to what entertainment they consume. But for a film franchise that is banking on nostalgia, Potter goodwill and wide-eyed magical wonder to drive audiences to theater seats, this isn't a good look.

After all, when the lights go down, people want to be thinking about fictional beasts and monsters, not real ones.