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

[MockingBird]

Don't bring the Room into this, that movie is a national treasure!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is making a sequel of HaT is a safer bet than starting again from zero with an unknown IP.

Let's remember before Blade the vampire-hunter Marvel superheroes movies were true bombs.

I suspect Hasbro would rather to make money with general D&D merch instead HaT to avoid paying royalties.

Maybe some parents would rather to watch the movie at home to skip some scenes if they think these aren't for their children, for example the cementery. And it was a long movie.

 

[zedturtle]

have no doubt that D&D HAT will get a sequel, even if it doesn't end up turning a profit. The movie wasn't able to overcome all of its baggage to turn a profit in the theaters, but once the overwhelmingly positive word of mouth and reviews spread, it did much better than expected in Streaming and VOD. This shows that there actually is a large audience for D&D movies. When the sequel comes out, it will be much better placed to make a large profit. If even half or a quarter of the people who watched D&D HAT on VOD and streaming go see the sequel in the theater, it will be a huge hit.

That's been my hope for a long time now. The movie is almost custom-made for the YouTube Reactor, and I watch every one that comes through my feed. Most of the big names in the field have done a video now, and almost none of them have ragged on the movie in the slightest. It is another 'my goodness this movie is so good, why did no one go to see it?', which is exactly what Paramount (and Ha$broz) wants.

 

[Zardnaar]

Looking at context, that is 1.5x the known costs together.

Known costs together are ~ $150 million in production, ~ $60 million in Paramount marketing, for a total of ~ $210 million. Times 1.5 equals ~ $315 million.

~ $315 million minus ~ $208 million (the final box office) equals ~ $107 million.

So Honor Among Thieves would need to make about $107 million from streaming+VOD.

1.5 is also generous but I think some movies can do it on that multiplier. You kind of need a big opening weekend/frontloaded in domestic market.

X2 is often used as it's kind of undeniable. For this reason.

Box office take is reported to a 3rd party. The studios can't really hide it or massage it.

Hollywood accounting determines who gets what.

So the thing is studios report the production and sometimes marketing costs to the Hollywood press. They take it a face value an iirc Deadline/Variety and Hollywood Reporter are all owned by the same company. They then get used as sources.

However the studios also tell porkies often under reporting the numbers. I think Dial of Destiny is latest movie to do this. 280-300 million became 329 million production costs.

X2 covers the porkies as well. If marketing budget is not known often X2.5 is used. Neither are perfect it doesn't work well on low budget movies that blow up or movies that over perform in foreign market espicially China.

Anyway expenses X1.5 gives us (approx) 325 million. 2.5 production costs is 375 million and X2 expenses is 420 million (and covers it if under reported). 2.5 assumes the back end covers marketing costs.

Theh higher numbers basically means the movie most likely is an undeniable hit come what may.

The guy I used for the 1.5 multiplier for TLM estimated HAT Break even at 375 in another video.TLM reformed better domestically can't remember HAT.

In my OP I did reference if it's unclear if a movie has broken even. In HATs case (for me) I consider that in the 325-375 million range.

HAT was a fairly typical movie performance wise in terms of foreign/domestic ratio, drop off rate etc. Even had a decent drop off rate but not exceptional.

If it landed in the 325-375 million range I wouldn't be calling it a flop if it cleared 2.5 ratio I would be calling it a hit. I would say it underperformed either as it doesn't really have anything else to compare with as it's not part of a trilogy or series etc.

 

[codo]

All of the discussions on profit here also leave out one major source of revenue. Merchandising. Hasbro is a toy company. They make toys.

There is a whole line of toys, t-shirt, and knick-knacks, and they seem to be selling well. I usually don't buy movie merchandise, but I love my Themeberchaud!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Other brands got a right promotion thanks the licence. For example cosmetic Nyx is more famous than before thanks the licence products. Even if these weren't sold too well the consumer can know the rest of products by that company.

I am surprised because Hasbro doesn't sell more D&D toys.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Looking at context, that is 1.5x the known costs together.

Known costs together are ~ $150 million in production, ~ $60 million in Paramount marketing, for a total of ~ $210 million. Times 1.5 equals ~ $315 million.

~ $315 million minus ~ $208 million (the final box office) equals ~ $107 million.

So Honor Among Thieves would need to make about $107 million from streaming+VOD.

I think for the sake of calculation, it's worth reminding that as a rough rule of thumb for determining how much a movie studio earns from a movie, final box office is halved, since the theaters are not owned by the same companies as the movie studios.

As such, if Honor Among Thieves production and marketing combined was over 300 million, then it would theoretically need to make another 200 million or more to break even.

Even with discrepancies in Hollywood accounting, I don't think the movie is going to break even anytime this century.

IMO they needed to do either a softer but wider intro into the setting (like starting with a live action series and linking it with comics, animation, novels, etc.), or go hardass into epic level DnD, to attract a big box office.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Honor Among Thieves will be available to stream through US Amazon Prime next month:

Prime Video August 2023 Schedule and the Freevee Lineup

The Prime Video August 2023 lineup includes new Amazon Original movies, TV series, and specials. We've got the Freevee schedule as well.

www.vitalthrills.com

This is part of an existing deal Amazon has with Paramount.

 

[bedir than]

Happy Friday, especially to those of you that are still watching Honor Among Thieves enough to keep it in the top 10 streaming movies in the USA. It's now been streaming in the US for 66 days and has been a top 10 movie that entire time. It's also streaming in Canada, where over the past week it started in 5th and is currently 9th.

If the section on VoD seems repetitive, that's because it is. D&D: Honor Among Thieves continues to have strong global VoD numbers.

On Amazon it spent most of the week at #2, something it hadn't done since it was released their over 70 days ago. There are still countries getting their first opportunity to download the movie. UK had a release just 15 days ago. Most days it has been #3, but the quantity of movies purchased has to be low because there is a lot of variance.

On iTunes D&D fell to 7th, but spent most of the week at 5th.

Google is where the global numbers are the best. After about 45 days at #1 Honor Among Thieves took a large drop to #2.
Rakuten still has the movie as a volatile top 10 (likely due to lack of significant sales numbers). On Vudu it's dropped to #11.


tl;dr -- Honor Among Thieves cast a time stop on movie sales in the google store, has stayed in a prolonged boss battle on US Streaming and iTunes. The popularity of the film on digital (VoD/streaming) is undeniable and ranks stronger than it did in the box office.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

All of the discussions on profit here also leave out one major source of revenue. Merchandising. Hasbro is a toy company. They make toys.

There is a whole line of toys, t-shirt, and knick-knacks, and they seem to be selling well. I usually don't buy movie merchandise, but I love my Themeberchaud!

Merchandising and streaming/digital are known to have done well