I'm not so sure though. For one, the Drizz't novels have been very popular for a long, long time. And, they've hit the best seller lists more than a few times. You'd think a 40k movie would be a smash hit in countries like Korea where Starcraft is practically a national sport (including prime-time TV coverage of pro matches, I kid you not).
Didn't WOTC recently say something to the effect that D&D had a 80 or 90% brand recognition factor? You'd think they could leverage that into a movie or TV deal. I'm old enough to remember when comic books were for kids and adults who collected were viewed as "kinda weird". Then comes Sam Raimi and now everyone loves these IP's.
I've never really understood why D&D has not managed to leverage that since the very early 80's.
Warner Brothers probably could care less about Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone hitting the shelves or even a best-seller list. While Goblet of Fire was hitting the shelves and the thought of a movie was being had, then they took notice, but not to compete with the book sales. They took notice to make sure they could get in the bidding or make the best offer, so someone else didn't make a motion picture on it that would be in competition of their own.
Had JKR not been interested in having the books turned into a movie, WB would have likely ignored it as a book isn't competing for entertainment dollars from movie goers.
With the first D&D movie, WB took notice to see if they though the name was big enough to cause competition, and then decide what of their properties to put up agaisnt it in the theaters. As an RPG, WB could care less about D&D as competition because the entertainment dollars spend on RPGs will not be spent on movies.
This is the GW attitude. Everyone has entertainment dollars, and rather than trying to capture them all like some rabid Pokemon, it is better to capture the entertainment dollars for your own field so you don't waste money competing for the wrong audience.
People that spend money on movies in theater and home viewing are the people that most interest WB Studios. They DO want every dollar people are willing to spend on movies that they can get, but not going to waste money trying to convert your entertainment focus on movies away form something else, because that has led to losses in EVERY industry.
GW is only interested in your miniature wargames dollars and competing for them. Just because D&D and Warhammer are both presented in forms of massive numbers of expensive rulebooks, and use miniatures, it doesn't mean that D&D serves as a competition for GW as it is not a miniature game, and the audience for a miniature game isn't the same audience of a TTRPG, even if some of those audiences overlap.
McDonald's doesn't compete with the local grocers, but with other fast food restaurants like Burger King and Wendys. Now they are branching out to compete with Starbucks and always have in a way competed with non fast food restaurants. This is because they are in the business of selling cooked food, not raw food, so those wanting to cook their own food aren't going to spending "food money" on fast food.
They may watch and take note of similar industry businesses, but don't view them as direct competitors. Price of beef goes up in grocers and butchers, McDonald's might run a sale on burgers to try to capture a few dollars, but they wont maintain those lower prices just to keep the gimmick going to capture those dollars, only long enough to try to catch a few more longer term fast food customers.
