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

[bedir than]

Still in the top 10 US streaming movies. This weekend it releases on Amazon Prime (nearly globally). It's up to 13th globally on Paramount+.
It's crashing on VoD via Amazon (as part of a transition to streaming availability? I don't know).

After 100+ days of availability Honor Among Thieves is now more popular on P+ while still being in the top 10 on iTunes and Google. On Rakuten it flirts with #1 bouncing up there every other day.

In an era when streaming services are cancelling failures, D&D: Honor Among Thieves is expanding its availability including to non-partners who are paying Paramount.

 

[Jaeger]

Still in the top 10 US streaming movies. This weekend it releases on Amazon Prime (nearly globally). It's up to 13th globally on Paramount+.
It's crashing on VoD via Amazon (as part of a transition to streaming availability? I don't know).

After 100+ days of availability Honor Among Thieves is now more popular on P+ while still being in the top 10 on iTunes and Google. On Rakuten it flirts with #1 bouncing up there every other day.

In an era when streaming services are cancelling failures, D&D: Honor Among Thieves is expanding its availability including to non-partners who are paying Paramount.

There is no context for what any of those VOD 'rankings' actually mean in terms of revenue earned.

We do know this though:

At this point there is not much more I can see that can be added to this topic. It seems very straitforward to me. Box office receipts and estimated streaming revenue resulted in a $25M write-off for Hasbro. There is no question that the company with the most information and a brand new CFO (ex-Harley Davidson) decided that the movie lost money for them.

 

[bedir than]

There is no context for what any of those VOD 'rankings' actually mean in terms of revenue earned.

We do know this though:

We do know that if Paramount agreed with you they would pull the movie from availability in order to get the tax write off similar to other shows they have cancelled, or like Disney did with Willow.

Instead they are expanding availability as well as still selling the movie to other services. This is the exact opposite of the way failed projects get treated in 2023.

 

[mamba]

We do know that if Paramount agreed with you they would pull the movie from availability in order to get the tax write off similar to other shows they have cancelled, or like Disney did with Willow.

Keeping it around is not costing them all that much. Not really following what they do, what shows did they pull that indicate this?

Instead they are expanding availability as well as still selling the movie to other services. This is the exact opposite of the way failed projects get treated in 2023.

Selling it to other services seems a no brainer, you would always do that under pretty much any circumstance. The only thing you could argue is that other services should maybe not be interested, but that might be a matter of price too.

In the end it remains true that we have no idea how much money the movie makes on streaming, if any after facctoring in the purchase price.

 

[bedir than]

Keeping it around is not costing them all that much. Not really following what they do, what shows did they pull that indicate this?

“The Game,” “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,” “Star Trek: Prodigy,” and “Queen of the Universe”

‘Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,’ ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Among Four Shows Canceled at Paramount+, Will Be Pulled Off Streamer

"The Game," "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies," "Star Trek: Prodigy," and "Queen of the Universe" have all been canceled at Paramount+

variety.com

The fact is keeping it available costs them potential tax saving (Disney wrote off like a billion dollars in failed streaming last year) and it costs them residuals (Pine, Grant and Rodriguez likely have significant)

 

[mamba]

The fact is keeping it available costs them potential tax saving (Disney wrote off like a billion dollars in failed streaming last year) and it costs them residuals (Pine, Grant and Rodriguez likely have significant)

Thanks for the list, will check them out. They can still write it off two or three months from now, and I assume residuals are essentially a percentage of the money it makes, so reduced income rather than an actual loss, so no rush there either.

EDIT, so the production companies behind three of the four shows are owned by Paramount Global, so that tracks as them not even keeping their own shows around. The studios are still free to find other buyers, including for episodes already produced that ended up not being aired due to the cancellation.

Not sure if series and movies get treated differently in that regard. I guess it all boils down to how many viewers per day you ultimately have however. Not sure where the line is at which point removing it is more feasible than keeping it on either, hosting alone should be relatively inexpensive, so viewers must be really low if that is the criteria. Would be interesting to know.

 

[Zardnaar]

“The Game,” “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,” “Star Trek: Prodigy,” and “Queen of the Universe”

‘Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,’ ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Among Four Shows Canceled at Paramount+, Will Be Pulled Off Streamer

"The Game," "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies," "Star Trek: Prodigy," and "Queen of the Universe" have all been canceled at Paramount+

variety.com

The fact is keeping it available costs them potential tax saving (Disney wrote off like a billion dollars in failed streaming last year) and it costs them residuals (Pine, Grant and Rodriguez likely have significant)

Alot of the deleted stuff basically flopped. Same at Disney. No one's denying its doing well on streaming.

Issue with streaming is monetizing it. Way to make money via steaming is don't be a streamer. In an arms race sell weapons don't join in. Sony says hi.

 

[bedir than]

Alot of the deleted stuff basically flopped. Same at Disney. No one's denying its doing well on streaming.

Issue with streaming is monetizing it. Way to make money via steaming is don't be a streamer. In an arms race sell weapons don't join in. Sony says hi.

With D&D: Honor Among Thieves, Paramount is doing both the selling (Netflix in some markets, Prime in others) and putting on their platform that long-term investors see as the key to profitability (specifically calling out film as why).

 

[Zardnaar]

With D&D: Honor Among Thieves, Paramount is doing both the selling (Netflix in some markets, Prime in others) and putting on their platform that long-term investors see as the key to profitability (specifically calling out film as why).

Without dollars amounts is meaningless though.
Netflix for example pays a few tens of thousands for a indie movie, 3-5 million for typical movie and 100+ million for big hit or exclusive to Netflix pet director type movie. Borat 2 got 80 million for example, Knives Out 150-200 million iirc but tor several movies not 1.

 

[Jaeger]

We do know that if Paramount agreed with you they would pull the movie from availability in order to get the tax write off similar to other shows they have cancelled, or like Disney did with Willow.

So even with having access to the actual financials of the film; Hasbro was wrong to write-down 25 million?


HaT vs. Willow is a classic example of the write-down vs. a write-off.

Hasbro did a write-down, taking a loss for tax purposes - but not a full write off. Because while a flop at the box office, it did not completely bomb.

So like many flops before it that lost money; HaT is going to float around on the Hasbro/Paramount Film library gradually bringing in something over time.

Willow was such a Hot-Trash Dumpster Fire of a series, that Disney completely wrote it off for maximum tax benefits because keeping it around as an example of how bad they ruined a Film-Streaming adaptation had no upside.

Instead they are expanding availability as well as still selling the movie to other services. This is the exact opposite of the way failed projects get treated in 2023.

Factually incorrect.

Not all flops, or even outright Bombs like Shazam2 in 2023 were written-off.

Paramount is probably more on the hook than Hasbro for the films cost, and they do have a streaming service that they actually do need content for. (Losing money hand over fist that it is...)

So it does make a degree of sense that Paramount will string things along for a while to try and minimize any losses before they have to finally deal with servicing the debt incurred financing the film.

With D&D: Honor Among Thieves, Paramount is doing both the selling (Netflix in some markets, Prime in others) and putting on their platform that long-term investors see as the key to profitability (specifically calling out film as why).

You can keep citing any and everything but actual VOD/Streaming revenue numbers all you want.

But it doesn't change the truth:

In the end it remains true that we have no idea how much money the movie makes on streaming, if any after facctoring in the purchase price.