Dungeons & Dragons Comments On Possibility of Future Movie Projects

Wizards of the Coast is "exploring" the possibility of new Dungeons & Dragons movie and TV projects. In the build up to the release of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Hasbro seemed to have an ambitious D&D Cinematic Universe plan in place. Although the movie underperformed, Paramount+ still picked up a Dungeons & Dragons television show with Rawson Marshall Thurber as the pilot script writer and director of the first episode and Drew Crevello as the showrunner.

However, Hasbro's sale of eOne, its in-house entertainment studio seems to have caused those plans to come crashing to a halt. The Paramount+ TV show was announced as no longer moving forward last year and other loose plans to continue a shared D&D universe seems dead in the water.

Despite the underperformance of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the movie was spoken fondly of and often during an EN World press visit to Wizards of the Coast headquarters last week. When asked if this talk meant we'd be getting an update on a possible sequel, Jess Lanzillo, the VP of the D&D franchise at Wizards, said "Not officially, no."

However, it appears interest remains high in possible future D&D projects. "After I joined the team at the end of Q1 2024, we kind of reestablished our relationship with a lot of studios and partners," Lanzillo said. "And we're doing a lot of exploration. We basically have aligned our philosophy to we want to pair up with the best creators and let them tell the best stories that they already know how to do, because all of these people started telling stories through playing D&D. And through that, there are a series of explorations that we are very, very excited about. When we're ready to announce them, we will let you know."

Reading in between the lines, it appears that decoupling from eOne has opened up the possibility of other studios and partners jumping into a D&D live-action or animated project. We'll have to see if it will be another 12 years in between Dungeons & Dragons movies.

 

[Stalker0]

So, you're saying there is a chance!

In a market that is so desperate for content they will remake anything that came out even like 5 years ago and will resurrect 70+ year old actors out of retirement.....there is always a chance

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not branded DND.... People that don't play have views on DnD, that aren't always positive

I want to argue with you but... I think, after sitting and thinking about it for a couple of minutes, and thinking about who I know who saw that movie and who didn't, you're actually right.

D&D doesn't have a bad rep. But it has a specific rep - as a tabletop roleplaying game with certain tropes and ideas. And I think that absolutely held back some people from going to the D&D movie in the way the Warcraft movie being basically "The WoW movie" (in people's perceptions) did. I think game movies in general have this issue unless the property is just insanely widespread and pop-culture in a way D&D still isn't, quite.

A bunch of my friends and acquaintances who don't play D&D but do watch fantasy movies didn't see the D&D movie any time near launch either, and I know if it had "just" been a fantasy movie they'd absolutely have seen it. There's probably some who were the other way - i.e. who wouldn't have seen it if it was "just" fantasy, but... I can't think of any I know, and I think that's probably a smaller group. I think the same movie without active D&D branding, just the quiet knowledge it was based on D&D, might well have performed better.

 

[Tonguez]

I thought HAT was a good movie, pity it underperformed (what was its box office btw?) - I do hope they make another something of good quality, maybe even bring the same crew back ...

 

[Chaltab]

As long as they bring back Jarnathan the Aaracokra to suffer more I will be happy.

 

[mamba]

Just going to point out that Honor Among Thieves made a profit.

Cost $150 million and made $200 million.

that is not how this works. I assume it forgets that there is also marketing cost, and it definitely ignores that the movie theaters keep quite a bit of those $200M.

It definitely was nowhere near breaking even in the theaters. Hasbro wrote off $25M from its ‘half’ of financing the movie (the other half is Paramount)

 

[Burnside]

Oh God please not another thread about whether Honor Among Thieves was profitable. I have PTSD.

 

[SteveC]

I have a friend who has a basement movie room setup that's out of this world. He did a showing of the movie with our gaming friends who have sort of stepped away from gaming in the last few years. They loved it.

When we asked them why they didn't see it already, it was largely related to WotC's actions. I think for gamers who didn't see it, this is common. For other people, maybe they just thought it would be a "gaming nerd movie." My contention is that if you like action/fantasy/superhero movies, you'd like this one, but somehow, it was a hard sell for both gamers and non-gamers.

Maybe they remember the first one ("Snails!!!!").

 

[Olaf the Stout]

That’s a bit disappointing. I was heavily sceptical about the D&D movie, but I was happy to eat humble pie after seeing it. It was both entertaining to watch and a good representation of D&D with tonnes of Easter eggs.

 

[TiQuinn]

I have a friend who has a basement movie room setup that's out of this world. He did a showing of the movie with our gaming friends who have sort of stepped away from gaming in the last few years. They loved it.

When we asked them why they didn't see it already, it was largely related to WotC's actions. I think for gamers who didn't see it, this is common. For other people, maybe they just thought it would be a "gaming nerd movie." My contention is that if you like action/fantasy/superhero movies, you'd like this one, but somehow, it was a hard sell for both gamers and non-gamers.

Maybe they remember the first one ("Snails!!!!").

I always think about how The Shawshank Redemption was considered a box-office bomb on its first go-around, and it took a re-release later to get it to profitability.

 

[bedir than]

The movie had bad timing and a bloated budget.

About a third of its cost was due to covid challenges. Movies filmed in multiple countries during heavy covid restrictions averaged nearly 40% increase over pre-pandemic budgets. D&D: HaT was filmed in four nations.