D&D Movie/TV D&D Movie Hit or Flop?

[darjr]

Oh. The PHB even did so well after it’s been in deep discount for months and with news of a replacement impending.

 

[darjr]

There ARE tie ins. Themberchaud is selling out from reports and he’s in an adventure. The heist book and a previous book has the prison. The cartoon characters art are all over the new starter set.

We have magic items and NPC stats for the characters.

Clips of the movie cast and directors playing D&D.

One of the stars telling people D&D should be taught in schools.

I do think I get what you mean, an adventure book with the movie all stated out or something more along those lines, but I dint think that’s quite the creators style.

I mean it seems like the Indiana Jones rpg taught a few lessons.

But who knows maybe we’ll get just that.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

You dint get it. I’m not saying it’s the thing that makes it a success. You seem to think that I am.

I think you and are similar. The movie is not covering costs so it is not a success. But compared to so real flops, this one does not seem to be at that level as well.

I think the movie is a failure on a stand alone basis and I think that the extras in the side don’t seem to justify the cost as well.

Hasbro is a public company and they have to account for the results so in a quarter or two we will have a much better picture.

 

[bedir than]

Every single D&D book is tied to the movie. That's the brand choice they made and it's fueling strong search, strong sales, strong licensing and strong merch.

There's mediocre box office, for a multitude of reasons.

 

[Stalker0]

To me this thread still suffers a fundamental split in expectations on what constitutes a hit or a flop.

Ultimately: A hit or flop is defined at the box office. You never see articles talking about how well a movie is doing based on toy sales, or brand inspiration, or secondary media sales. Its just not the conversation.

Now, that doesn't mean a movie can't be seen internally at a company as "having been worth doing", for various reasons. It also doesn't mean that another movie couldn't be made even if the first one was a "flop" by box office standards, again due to various reasons.


So if we are back into the original question of the thread: Is the Dnd movie a hit or a flop? We go to the box office, and right now the box office vs its budget, its clearly not doing well, and is probably a "flop" based on box office standards. And that's really it I'm afraid, we can talk around and around until the cows come home, or can wait to see the trickle from the remaining weeks to see if anything miraculous happens....but otherwise this conversation has been settled at this point.

 

[Gammadoodler]

At the end of the day if you feel like Ender's Game is a better comparison because of different factors it really doesn't matter, that film also never got a sequel due to poor box office performance.

The combination of this movie either loosing money or maybe eventually limping to breaking even after everything is counted, along Hasbro selling it's film production company really speaks to the chances of a sequel being made. And I hate to say it those chances aren't good. I would love to be wrong. I loved Honor Among Thieves and would love to see a sequel. But I'm just being realistic about it's chances of getting a sequel.

As I said before, I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with your conclusion. It was the process to get there that I was faulting.

Certainly "runaway smash hit" does not seem to be in the cards. That said, worse movies and poorer performing movies have gotten sequels.

Edit: And if the goal is to forecast what will happen for a potential franchise, it's worth actually considering properties that would be in the same peer group.

 

[payn]

To me this thread still suffers a fundamental split in expectations on what constitutes a hit or a flop.

Ultimately: A hit or flop is defined at the box office. You never see articles talking about how well a movie is doing based on toy sales, or brand inspiration, or secondary media sales. Its just not the conversation.

Now, that doesn't mean a movie can't be seen internally at a company as "having been worth doing", for various reasons. It also doesn't mean that another movie couldn't be made even if the first one was a "flop" by box office standards, again due to various reasons.


So if we are back into the original question of the thread: Is the Dnd movie a hit or a flop? We go to the box office, and right now the box office vs its budget, its clearly not doing well, and is probably a "flop" based on box office standards. And that's really it I'm afraid, we can talk around and around until the cows come home, or can wait to see the trickle from the remaining weeks to see if anything miraculous happens....but otherwise this conversation has been settled at this point.

I think folks might be thinking flop means bomb. To me a flop is a film that just doesn't resonate with the general movie going audience. Why is a very nuanced and different discussion. A bomb is something that nobody wants to see, critics despise, and just looses its ass at the box office. Things like Pluto Nash, Lone Ranger, etc..

Seems DADHAT is a flop, but of course, here folks are going to be very sensitive to that. They love the game and want its popularity to soar. Being branded a flop is not going to do that. However, I think it not being a dumpster fire like previous film attempts is a big win in itself. Also, flops sometimes have a tendency to get sequels anyways and another attempt built on this foundation could be even better.

 

[Undrave]

Every single D&D book is tied to the movie. That's the brand choice they made and it's fueling strong search, strong sales, strong licensing and strong merch.

There's mediocre box office, for a multitude of reasons.

So if we are back into the original question of the thread: Is the Dnd movie a hit or a flop? We go to the box office, and right now the box office vs its budget, its clearly not doing well, and is probably a "flop" based on box office standards. And that's really it I'm afraid, we can talk around and around until the cows come home, or can wait to see the trickle from the remaining weeks to see if anything miraculous happens....but otherwise this conversation has been settled at this point.

I think folks might be thinking flop means bomb. To me a flop is a film that just doesn't resonate with the general movie going audience. Why is a very nuanced and different discussion. A bomb is something that nobody wants to see, critics despise, and just looses its ass at the box office. Things like Pluto Nash, Lone Ranger, etc..

Seems DADHAT is a flop, but of course, here folks are going to be very sensitive to that. They love the game and want its popularity to soar. Being branded a flop is not going to do that. However, I think it not being a dumpster fire like previous film attempts is a big win in itself. Also, flops sometimes have a tendency to get sequels anyways and another attempt built on this foundation could be even better.

It's a flop because not enough people are going to see it, but the people that ARE seems to like it so, as Payn say, it's not a bomb.

The movie is clearly not failing because its bad, I think we can all agree on that.

I had more than one friend tell me they were wary of it because of the last DnD movie from 20 friggin' years ago as if it had any bearing on this new one... seems weird to me when there's no link whatsoever between the two beside the franchise.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Seems DADHAT is a flop, but of course, here folks are going to be very sensitive to that. They love the game and want its popularity to soar. Being branded a flop is not going to do that. However, I think it not being a dumpster fire like previous film attempts is a big win in itself. Also, flops sometimes have a tendency to get sequels anyways and another attempt built on this foundation could be even better.

It's unfortunately more complicated than that.

Everyone is used to using the pre-COVID metrics and the rules of thumb that were used in the industry. And those are helpful, to some limited extent, still.

But the economics in the post-COVID environment, combined with the streaming services, make it different right now. Take Air, for example. Air had a budget of $90 million (or so) and another $40 million (or so) to market. So, on the one hand, with a current worldwide gross of $54 million, it's kind of a flop.

Except it isn't. Air was never supposed to even release in theaters- Amazon chose to give it a theatrical release! We don't know what the relationship with MGM is in terms of distribution, but any amount over marketing is gravy. Why did Amazon do this? Because streamers are beginning to realize two things-

1. Any box office profit over marketing is ... profit; and
2. A movie released in theaters may actually be a bigger draw to streaming services than a movie just released on the streamer!

Now that doesn't mean everything everyone knows is wrong- we can still say, for example, that John Wick 4 was a hit and that Mario Bros. monstrosity is an unexpected juggernaut. But because the box office itself has changed (and a lot of what is going on in the backend), it's much harder to speak with confidence about the performance of movies that aren't clear-cut.

TLDR; without knowing what arrangements were made, it's really hard to tell very much at this stage about the finances of DADHAT. For that reason, perception (the quality of the movie, the impact on the brand, the performance vis-a-vis expectations, and the collateral effect (if any) on merchandise and other products) will matter.

 

[Burnside]

Now at $157,070,213 worldwide, so it has at least cleared its production budget.