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

[bedir than]

D&D: Honor Among Thieves is now available on Netflix, in Canada only. Looks like it released at midnight last night (Sunday to Monday)

It's #2 on Netflix Canada after its first full day

Their selection is pretty poor right now. Nobody is number one, Going the Distance is three with Unknown: The Lost Pyramid at four.

 

[LordEntrails]

convenient, so unless the whole WotC CU fails, HAT can be declared a success, even if it left a 100M hole.

It depends on how you define success. You and most others in this thread define success based on upon profitability directly tied to this movie (box office and streaming revenue). I think that is a very narrow and poor way to determine if the movie was successful.

I understand that, I don't think HAT is building them 100M worth of brand value however. Let's see what the numbers for the second quarter are, and then we talk. If we see no progress there, then I doubt HAT will show one 5 years down the line either.

I don't think HAT will ever turn a profit. Not really. I think the intent is to build brand value. And I agree that we will have to wait 5+ years to see and will probably never be able to definitively say.

no, it's more that we do not have the long term numbers, and that we likely will never know. I am saying it is unlikely that it fills the remaining hole for a reason, and that is that I am considering the long tail.

(we are starting to see things similarly...)

The problem is we will never know, so you cannot really use this as your 'see, this is how HAT made money' proof.

It's not about HAT making money. I keep trying to say that and you tend to seem to agree, but then you come back and say things like this.

Either way, if we do not know, we cannot actually claim that it turned a profit because of this. We can at most speculate.

Success is not about profit. Or it does not have to be. There are many ways other than product profit that businesses measure success.

3) anyone who claims that HAT is making its money back this way has no leg to stand on.

I've never said such a thing. I don't think HAT will make its money back long term. But, I think it very likely will add significant brand value to justify its investment.

This is what I am refuting, the claim that 'HAT is a success, if only you consider everything'. You do not know that, this is at best speculation and at worst just wishful thinking.

I do not know it. But to claim that HAT is a flop because it did not turn a profit is at best narrow minded and at worst willfully something.

no, I don't think I did. I also don't think HAT was supposed to be a loss leader. Do you think so?

I don't think HAT was planned as a loss leader, but it was also not about making profit. It was about building the brand for the future.

 

[Zardnaar]

It depends on how you define success. You and most others in this thread define success based on upon profitability directly tied to this movie (box office and streaming revenue). I think that is a very narrow and poor way to determine if the movie was successful.

I don't think HAT will ever turn a profit. Not really. I think the intent is to build brand value. And I agree that we will have to wait 5+ years to see and will probably never be able to definitively say.

(we are starting to see things similarly...)

It's not about HAT making money. I keep trying to say that and you tend to seem to agree, but then you come back and say things like this.

Success is not about profit. Or it does not have to be. There are many ways other than product profit that businesses measure success.

I've never said such a thing. I don't think HAT will make its money back long term. But, I think it very likely will add significant brand value to justify its investment.

I do not know it. But to claim that HAT is a flop because it did not turn a profit is at best narrow minded and at worst willfully something.

I don't think HAT was planned as a loss leader, but it was also not about making profit. It was about building the brand for the future.

And yet my OP is pure about the money. That objective for the most part.

Whats subjective is if the movie is anygood and it's long term legacy.

If one D&D flops for example I wouldn't blame HAT that much same if it's a big hit as that's just continuing
5E trajectory.

 

[mamba]

It depends on how you define success. You and most others in this thread define success based on upon profitability directly tied to this movie (box office and streaming revenue).

not sure how much clearer I can make it that I do not do that than in my last post, and yet this is how you open your reply…

I don't think HAT will ever turn a profit. Not really. I think the intent is to build brand value. And I agree that we will have to wait 5+ years to see and will probably never be able to definitively say

given that you agree, you do know that we both use the same measure, otherwise there is nothing to agree to

I agree with everything you said there but the first sentence. Brand value (through increased sales) counts towards HAT profit, the only question is will it create enough of that (and chances are we will never know that definitely)

I've never said such a thing.

others have

Success is not about profit. Or it does not have to be. There are many ways other than product profit that businesses measure success.

not really, it is just about what counts towards return on investment / profit

No one is intentionally spending more money than they get back in some form

I don't think HAT was planned as a loss leader, but it was also not about making profit. It was about building the brand for the future.

to me that counts as making a positive return on the investment, and I count that as a profit.

Also be be clear, if WotC in 5 years says that HAT recouped 10M profit over those 5 years for them, that is still a loss, as simply gaining interest on the 100M you invested would have gotten you more money over that timeframe. So the time it takes to break even counts against HAT being a success.
So they cannot keep chipping away at the costs, 500k a year until they finally break even by 2200 or so, that is not how this works

I doubt it will make a profit, but as I said we will probably never know for sure

 

[Zardnaar]

not sure how much clearer I can make it that I do not do that than in my last post, and yet this is how you open your reply…


given that you agree, you do know that we both use the same measure, otherwise there is nothing to agree to

I agree with everything you said there but the first sentence. Brand value (through increased sales) counts towards HAT profit, the only question is will it create enough of that (and chances are we will never know that definitely)


others have


not really, it is just about what counts towards return on investment / profit

No one is intentionally spending more money than they get back in some form


to me that counts as making a positive return on the investment, and I count that as a profit.

Also be be clear, if WotC in 5 years says that HAT recouped 10M profit over those 5 years for them, that is still a loss, as simply gaining interest on the 100M you invested would have gotten you more money over that timeframe. So the time it takes to break even counts against HAT being a success.
So they cannot keep chipping away at the costs, 500k a year until they finally break even by 2200 or so, that is not how this works

I doubt it will make a profit, but as I said we will probably never know for sure

Movies are often funded by debt so if they borrowed any of that 75 million they put up there's interest payments on that.

Paramount (presumably) paid 75 million and 60+ million for marketing.

 

[LordEntrails]

And yet my OP is pure about the money. That objective for the most part.

Well then I must have forgot. So yes, if that is how you measure success, then the movie was not a success.

I doubt it will make a profit, but as I said we will probably never know for sure

Agreed.

 

[Jaeger]

Movies are often funded by debt so if they borrowed any of that 75 million they put up there's interest payments on that.

if WotC in 5 years says that HAT recouped 10M profit over those 5 years for them, that is still a loss, as simply gaining interest on the 100M you invested would have gotten you more money over that timeframe. So the time it takes to break even counts against HAT being a success.
So they cannot keep chipping away at the costs, 500k a year until they finally break even by 2200 or so, that is not how this works

This is what is not factored in enough here when people say: "It will eventually make its money back."

Now that we know what was spent on marketing we know that HaT is about 100m in the hole.

That's 100m of debt that must be still be serviced.

Vod/Streaming will not make up that gap anywhere near fast enough to justify the continued interest payments.

The studio will do one of two things, or a combination to stop having to keep paying interest on the outstanding 100m.

They will take from a profitable film to pay off the loan, and/or write off all, or part as a loss for tax purposes.

Even with Vod/Streaming, a good chunk of that 100m will show as a loss one way or the other this year on the studio books.


So yes, D&D HaT will become part of the stable of films in the paramount library that will continue to 'make money' on the backend.

That does not change the fact that D&DHaT lost tens of millions of dollars for the studio this year.

 

[bedir than]

Now that we know what was spent on marketing we know that HaT is about 100m in the hole.

That's 100m of debt that must be still be serviced.

Vod/Streaming will not make up that gap anywhere near fast enough to justify the continued interest payments.

Except that we know neither studio lost 100m. Paramount may have already made their spend back.
VoD could have made that up too, as Mario made 75mill and Honor Among Thieves is more popular on each platform where they both exist.

 

[Zardnaar]

Except that we know neither studio lost 100m. Paramount may have already made their spend back.
VoD could have made that up too, as Mario made 75mill and Honor Among Thieves is more popular on each platform where they both exist.

You're cherry picking platforms though.

Top few movies I'm looking at are John Wick and Mario generally.

More platforms means more money.

 

[bedir than]

You're cherry picking platforms though.

No, I'm not.

I've included every on-demand platform where both were available, and not even cared about which nations they were available in (Mario was available in more and still didn't rank as high for as long).

My bad, last time I didn't include Rakuten and Vudu, because Mario wasn't available there. It is now. Honor Among thieves is doing better in their short period of time when both movies are available.