‘Fantastic Beasts’ Gay Dialogue Cut For Chinese Screenings

Warner Bros. has removed two brief lines hinting at a gay relationship between two characters in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore in compliance with Chinese censors. The references to a gay relationship apparently amount to only six seconds of screen time in the film, which has left some fans questioning whether the studio made it easy to cut this material out of the film on purpose.

There are only two lines in the uncensored cut that China took issue with, which featured Jude Law as Dumbledore telling series antagonist Gellert Grindelwald “because I was in love with you,” and another scene where he reflected on their relationships saying “the summer Gellert and I fell in love.”

Harry Potter series author and Fantastic Beasts screenwriter J.K. Rowling first stated in 2009 that Dumbledore was gay, two years after the last book in the Potter series was released. She has since been criticized for not writing about Dumbledore’s sexuality in any meaningful way in the books or subsequent materials, and some felt the announcement of his sexuality after the fact was to get credit for being LGBTQ friendly without thinking much about inclusion.

Warner Bros. told Variety “we’re committed to safeguarding the integrity of every film we release, and that extends to circumstances that necessitate making nuanced cuts in order to respond sensitively to a variety of in-market factors.” They insisted that despite the cuts, “the spirit of the film remains intact.”

Fantastic Beasts bringing in $10 million from Chinese screenings in its first week in theaters is probably slightly more important to the studio than a minor gay subplot. It is still disappointing, however, for queer fans of the series that have realized these elements were likely kept to the bare minimum to just get them to fill theater seats, and quickly removed if they threatened to harm profits elsewhere.