Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara’s big bet on J.K. Rowling could pay off with ‘Fantastic Beasts’

Shortly after he became chief executive of Warner Bros. Entertainment in March 2013, Kevin Tsujihara phoned “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.

Tsujihara heard Rowling was interested in writing a screenplay based on her 2001 book “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” He wanted to know if the celebrated author was interested in making another movie with Warner Bros., following a decade of blockbuster Harry Potter films.

The newly minted studio boss then flew to Rowling’s home in Edinburgh, Scotland. Over a three-hour dinner, he shared his vision for the studio and promised a relationship of trust and wide creative latitude. Several meetings later, they had a deal.

“There would never have been a Fantastic Beasts franchise without Kevin Tsujihara,” Rowling wrote in an acknowledgement for the screenplay.

Tsujihara’s gamble will be tested this weekend when Warner Bros. releases “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” around the world — the first of five planned movies written by Rowling.

“Re-establishing the (Harry Potter) franchise was incredibly important to our studio,” Tsujihara told The Times this week. “It is a foundation piece of what our slate is going to look like going forward.”

A successful launch would be another boost for Warner Bros. which has been on an upswing this year after a rough 2015, when the studio fielded several expensive flops, including “Pan” and “In the Heart of the Sea.”

This year’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad,” though panned by critics, were financially successful, grossing $1.6 billion combined. Meanwhile, smaller-scale Warner Bros. movies have been working for audiences and critics, including Clint Eastwood’s “Sully,” the comedy “Central Intelligence” and the horror flick “Lights Out,” both from the studio’s New Line Cinema division.

And now all signs show that “Fantastic Beasts,” which cost an estimated $180 million to make and about $150 million to market, could be a winner.

Analysts say “Fantastic Beasts” should gross a strong $75 million in ticket sales from the U.S. and Canada through Sunday, including a Thursday late-night haul of $8.8 million. Adding international sales, the movie could take in $200 million this weekend alone. The film opens in China, the world’s second-biggest film market, next week.

“You really have to give Tsujihara kudos for getting J.K. Rowling to recommit,” said Matthew Harrigan, a media analyst at Wunderlich Securities. “Warner went through a couple bumpy years, and now it feels like it’s fully righted itself.”

Tsujihara has long described the Harry Potter universe as one of the three pillars of his film strategy (the other two are DC and Lego). Each is widely seen as important for Warner Bros. at a time when the major Hollywood studios increasingly depend on big-budget, well-known franchises to get the masses into movie theaters — a strategy epitomized by Disney’s trifecta of Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel.

Few think “Fantastic Beasts” will spark a cultural phenomenon on the level of the Harry Potter movies, which amassed $7.7 billion in global box office over the span of eight movies. But analysts have been enthusiastic about the studio’s prospects with the “Beasts” movies, especially after seeing mostly positive reviews from critics.

Warner Bros. had a tricky marketing challenge on its hands as the studio tried to please the loyal fans of the original movies, while also establishing the “Fantastic Beasts” films as their own thing. Instead of the United Kingdom, the new story takes place in 1926 New York, decades before Harry Potter and his friends step foot on Hogwarts’ campus.

The film follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a magical zoologist who comes to the city with a case full of creatures and gets involved with a secret society of witches and wizards. The title comes from Scamander’s fictional book, which makes appearances elsewhere in the Harry Potter canon.

“Even for the fans we had to educate them that this was a chronology before Harry Potter but in the same world,” Tsujihara said. “It was a marketing challenge, [but] we knew there was a built-in audience of people who were really interested in getting into this.”

Since the success of the Potter series, which closed in 2011 with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,” Warner Bros. has been working to expand the wizards-and-witches property into every corner of its business. That effort is important for parent company Time Warner Inc., which is being acquired by mobile phone giant AT&T for $85.4 billion.

Harry Potter has continued to be a major profit-driver in multiple businesses including toys, theme parks and books. The saga has even spawned a stage play and a touring exhibition with artifacts and settings inspired by the movies.

Highlighting the consumer demand for all-things-Rowling, Universal Studios Hollywood’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction has been a big draw with patrons since it opened in April. NBCUniversal this year also struck a deal with Warner Bros. for the television rights to the Potter and “Beasts” pictures — in a pact worth up to $250 million depending on the performance of the new films.

The franchise has even worked its magic on the studio lot itself. Warner Bros. announced this week that its studio tour in Burbank will now showcase props and costumes from “Fantastic Beasts” and other Potter movies.

It remains to be seen whether the studio can sustain the success of “Fantastic Beasts” over a five-film span promised by Warner Bros. and Rowling. But analysts who follow Warner Bros. have been heartened by the continued appetite for Potter-related material at a time when there are few sure things in Hollywood.

“What is encouraging is that Warner Bros. was able to go back to the well and revive a storied franchise from the days of yore,” said Barton Crockett, a research analyst at FBR Capital Markets who covers the media industry. “Any time you make a movie it’s risky, but this is as close to a guarantee that you get.”

ryan.faughnder@latimes.com

Follow Ryan Faughnder on Twitter for more entertainment business coverage: @rfaughnder

Times Staff Writer Richard Verrier contributed to this report.