D&D Movie/TV I was surprised WotC didn't announce a movie-related product at Wizards Live -- unless they did ...

[bedir than]

Remember that Wizards Presents was just a Wizards event. I don't recall a single thing presented that included a partner.

Nothing about external video games, or minis, or Beedles, or non Beyond vtt, etc.

 

[Smackpixi]

The movie is a $100 million plus bet. It’s going to need to succeed on its own merits, any tie-in RPG products will be pulled by the movie, not push it. To be successful they not only need everyone who plays D&D to go see it, but to bring 10 friends.

Sort of like the Guardians of the Galaxy movie it’s being compared to, that movie‘s revenue dwarfs the sales of the comics by orders of magnitudes.

D&D has more of a presence than Guardians did before the movie, but even if it’s the cultural presence of say Spider-Man before Sam Rami, it’s a huge leap from selling 100s of thousands of books per year to getting 40 million people to go see your movie.

A starter set tie-in would seem likely…and if the movie bombs, being unable to sell that warehouse full of toxic starter sets will be the least of their problems, so I don’t think they’ll be timid about it when the time comes.

 

[bedir than]

The movie is a $100 million plus bet. It’s going to need to succeed on its own merits, any tie-in RPG products will be pulled by the movie, not push it. To be successful they not only need everyone who plays D&D to go see it, but to bring 10 friends.

Sort of like the Guardians of the Galaxy movie it’s being compared to, that movie‘s revenue dwarfs the sales of the comics by orders of magnitudes.

D&D has more of a presence than Guardians did before the movie, but even if it’s the cultural presence of say Spider-Man before Sam Rami, it’s a huge leap from selling 100s of thousands of books per year to getting 40 million people to go see your movie.

The current player base is about fifty million

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Remember that Wizards Presents was just a Wizards event. I don't recall a single thing presented that included a partner.

Nothing about external video games, or minis, or Beedles, or non Beyond vtt, etc.

Good point. And not having anything about Baldur's Gate III was a pretty glaring omission.

 

[bedir than]

Good point. And not having anything about Baldur's Gate III was a pretty glaring omission.

I expect a January D&D event that's movie and six months of product

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I expect a January D&D event that's movie and six months of product

"Here's our next two or three releases, plus a bunch of tie-in material" would be a pretty good stream.

Just so long as they go with more restrained folks like Ginny D and not streamers who spend all their time mugging for the camera and trying to promote their own brands, like the time before. I know WotC believes streamers are important, but they don't seem to exercise much discretion in who they bring on.

 

[Smackpixi]

The current player base is about fifty million

That’s their estimated number of people who have EVER played. But fair point, they need all active players to go see the movie and only bring 5 friends.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That’s their estimated number of people who have EVER played. But fair point, they need all active players to go see the movie and only bring 5 friends.

I think there will be plenty of people who've ever played who will go to the movie. The trailer looks good and, as was mentioned, a lot more people know of D&D than knew Guardians of the Galaxy, which had a (pre-pandemic) $94 million opening weekend.

 

[Smackpixi]

I think there will be plenty of people who've ever played who will go to the movie. The trailer looks good and, as was mentioned, a lot more people know of D&D than knew Guardians of the Galaxy, which had a (pre-pandemic) $94 million opening weekend.

Yeah but Guardians didn’t have to carry the burden of being a fantasy movie. LotR movies have blinded people to the fact that, generally, these things are box office poison. I wish them all the best but I think there’s a world in which the movie is both awesome and a failure. Or, what I suspect, a tepid success not embarrassing make back our money but don’t risk a sequel. Hope I’m wrong.

Back to your topic though, there‘s a Red Wizard in the trailer, I’d like some serious Thay is trying to break the world again tie-in adventure.

 

[DEFCON 1]

As much as I think it would have been nice to have a book tie-in... I don't think the way that the game industry and movie industry do their businesses would allow for something that neatly tied up in a bow. Any game book WotC would write will have probably an 18 month journey from conception to release. Movies can have anywhere from like 6 months to 3 years of pre-production, production, and post-production to get it ready (especially effect-laden films)... and even upon completion a movie studio will slot the film into their schedule whenever they have space and whenever they think it should go. And WotC has no control over that.

Sure WotC could have tried to produce an Honor Among Thieves tie-in game to be released right around the film's release... whenever they thought the studio would put it into theaters... but what if the movie ended up testing poorly and the studio decided to bump it back in their schedule 6 months in order to do re-shoots? Would WotC be able to rearrange their production, printing, and distribution to match? Not likely. In that case what would probably have happened was that the Honor Among Thieves tie-in game book would get released-- going over a whole bunch of stuff in the game that no one knew it was referencing because there was no movie to connect it to-- and then 6 to 12 months later when the movie finally was released the game was already on the shelves and no one cared anymore.

In point of fact... I think WotC's better off waiting to see how Honor Among Thieves actually does in the theater before deciding to do a tie-in product. Because if the film does huge numbers... people will snatch up the game even if it gets released 6 to 12 months after the film's release. And WotC would have a much better idea after the fact of the public's desire for a game tie-in to make them feel good about spending the money and time to create one. That wouldn't be the case if they tried to do a simultaneous-ish release with the film upon initial release.