LOS ANGELES — Warner Bros. and J. K. Rowling pulled off an exceptionally difficult magic trick over the weekend. Not only did they bring the “Harry Potter” film franchise back to life, they also did it without Harry Potter.

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a movie burdened with laying the foundation for four planned sequels, as well as strengthening the entire “Harry Potter” business empire, arrived to a solid $75 million in ticket sales in North America. The film, which cost an estimated $330 million to make and market worldwide, collected an additional $143.3 million in partial release overseas.

Just as important for Warner were strong reviews. The studio’s last three big-budget movies were excoriated by critics. Warner’s vast marketing department saved the day in those cases, using slick ads to power films like “Suicide Squad” to big openings. But this time the studio had the creative goods: “Fantastic Beasts” received a “certified fresh” score on the Rotten Tomatoes review-aggregation site.

At the weekend’s start, it was unclear how Harry Potter fans would react to “Fantastic Beasts,” which Ms. Rowling (writing her first screenplay) based on her 2001 creature compendium of the same name — one of Harry Potter’s textbooks, as the mythology goes. But “Fantastic Beasts” does not feature any of the same central characters, and it takes place in 1926 New York instead of present-day Britain.