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

[CommodoreKong]

After a Decade in Limbo, Brian Robbins Is Giving Paramount a Makeover With ‘Ninja Turtles,’ Tom Cruise and ‘Gladiator 2’

From a Variety article that interviews Paramount's CEO Brian Robbins:

"Even a star’s ability to make audiences swoon isn’t always enough to guarantee that a movie will make money. “Babylon,” an epic about the silent movie era, collapsed at the box office when Paramount released it last December, despite starring Brad Pitt, while “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” will lose money even though Chris Pine led the ensemble. Robbins isn’t abandoning the idea of more “Dungeons & Dragons,” though if there’s a sequel, he says, “We’ve got to figure out a way to make it for less.”


It straight out confirms that Honor Among Thieves lost money and if they do a sequel they need to find a way to make it with a smaller budget.
Given the setting that probably wont be an easy task unless they can get the actors to agree to a smaller salary or do a much smaller scale story.

 

[bedir than]

It straight out confirms that Honor Among Thieves lost money and if they do a sequel they need to find a way to make it with a smaller budget.
Given the setting that probably wont be an easy task unless they can get the actors to agree to a smaller salary or do a much smaller scale story.

The full article makes it clear that the phrase about losing money is related to box office as every single movie was about box office, not streaming.
A full read also makes it clear that Robbins wants every single one of his movie projects to have lower budgets, even the ones that were massive hits. He talks extensively about how covid raised pricing on several movies due to reshoots, rescheduling, etc.

Also, I have no idea how he wants to make that movie for less than 75 million. That was the cost to Paramount.

 

[Ferrousbones]

while “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” will lose money

Commodore, you need to clarify that this statement is from the author of the article, not the CEO. The way you quoted implies the CEO, which puts the comment in a different context.

The full article makes it clear that the phrase about losing money is related to box office as every single movie was about box office, not streaming.

True, but we do need to be careful about stating HAT as doing well, since we don't know how many viewers per week each rank of viewership equates to, nor how many viewers are first-time or separately paying to watch the movie, which are the only definite ways to make up for the box-office loss.

 

[bedir than]

True, but we do need to be careful about stating HAT as doing well, since we don't know how many viewers per week each rank of viewership equates to, nor how many viewers are first-time or separately paying to watch the movie, which are the only definite ways to make up for the box-office loss.

Correct, we only have ranking as compares to other movies, not number of viewers. This opacity is part of why SAG-AFTRA is striking.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Also, I have no idea how he wants to make that movie for less than 75 million. That was the cost to Paramount.

I mean 75 million is roughly the inflation adjusted cost of the original Star Wars... which seems like a fairly reasonable cost for something that requires fantasy sets and costumes and lots of special effects.

It's all the movies that cost 2-5 times that and don't look any better or more impressive than the D&D movie where Hollywood needs to rethink what the hell they are really doing.

 

[Zardnaar]

I mean 75 million is roughly the inflation adjusted cost of the original Star Wars... which seems like a fairly reasonable cost for something that requires fantasy sets and costumes and lots of special effects.

It's all the movies that cost 2-5 times that and don't look any better or more impressive than the D&D movie where Hollywood needs to rethink what the hell they are really doing.

Personally I blame the writing. Looks like creatively bankrupt formulaic movies aren't doing to well.

Barbie did 20 odd million on a Wednesday approaching 500 million in less than a week.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

My suspicion is that the talk of a sequel "needing to be cheaper" is probably really about trying to convince stars, directors, etc. to take a pay cut if they want another outing (or at least not expect a pay raise). And Chris Pine's reported $11.5 million to headline the ensemble does seem to me like the place where there is the most obvious budgetary bloat. He's great in the movie, but if he was the sort of draw that justified that sort of payday (both as an absolute number and as a percentage of overall budget) the movie would have probably been a hit.

If there is another movie don't be surprised if it focuses on new characters or the least expensive members of the existing cast, with the Edgin and Holga core of this movie being relegated to cameos.

Of course, presumably no pay cut for Paramount executives will be forthcoming.

Personally I blame the writing. Looks like creatively bankrupt formulaic movies aren't doing to well.

Barbie did 20 odd million on a Wednesday approaching 500 million in less than a week.

I would argue that it's more about formula fatigue than the actual writing of the individual movies, since that is something people have limited sense of when deciding to see them. But the same basic argument holds.

However, I think the formulaic tendencies also come from the inflated budgets. When a studio is dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on a movie and need it to be a blockbuster to recoup expenses they are much less likely to allow it's creative team to try anything remotely new than when it has a midlevel budget. The actual people doing the writing, directing, acting, etc. have not become meaningfully less creative in recent years... if there is a rise of formulaic tendencies it most likely comes from the top and the top thinks almost exclusively with their wallets.

And wildly expensive formulaic movies would probably still do well enough if they were confined to 3-4 big event movies a year. But instead we get an endless throng of similar movies that need to be blockbusters to succeed that are not only all eating each others lunches, but making people generally tired of movies of their various types.

 

[Zardnaar]

My suspicion is that the talk of a sequel "needing to be cheaper" is probably really about trying to convince stars, directors, etc. to take a pay cut if they want another outing (or at least not expect a pay raise). And Chris Pine's reported $11.5 million to headline the ensemble does seem to me like the place where there is the most obvious budgetary bloat. He's great in the movie, but if he was the sort of draw that justified that sort of payday (both as an absolute number and as a percentage of overall budget) the movie would have probably been a hit.

If there is another movie don't be surprised if it focuses on new characters or the least expensive members of the existing cast, with the Edgin and Holga core of this movie being relegated to cameos.

Of course, presumably no pay cut for Paramount executives will be forthcoming.


I would argue that it's more about formula fatigue than the actual writing of the individual movies, since that is something people have limited sense of when deciding to see them. But the same basic argument holds.

However, I think the formulaic tendencies also come from the inflated budgets. When a studio is dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on a movie and need it to be a blockbuster to recoup expenses they are much less likely to allow it's creative team to try anything remotely new than when it has a midlevel budget. The actual people doing the writing, directing, acting, etc. have not become meaningfully less creative in recent years... if there is a rise of formulaic tendencies it most likely comes from the top and the top thinks almost exclusively with their wallets.

And wildly expensive formulaic movies would probably still do well enough if they were confined to 3-4 big event movies a year. But instead we get an endless throng of similar movies that need to be blockbusters to succeed that are not only all eating each others lunches, but making people generally tired of movies of their various types.

Pretty much how I see it. Watched Transformers Beast Wars somewhat recently.

Was OK as far as Transformers go it's one of the better ones. Very predictable been here before vibes though.

 

[OB1]

If there is another movie don't be surprised if it focuses on new characters or the least expensive members of the existing cast, with the Edgin and Holga core of this movie being relegated to cameos.

And it would be fairly easy to do a direct sequel like this.

Premise: Edgin and Holga have been captured by the Red Wizards, and it's up to Simon and Doric, along with some new companions, to travel to Thay and rescue their friends.

Without the full star cost of Pine, Rodriguez or Grant, the budget could easily be in the 80-90M range, and with the first film doing so well in streaming, the awareness of a second film would be much higher, keeping marketing costs down.

 

[Ferrousbones]

Out of curiosity, I decided to look for when HAT appeared on Amazon VOD, and came upon Keepa: Keepa.com - Amazon Price Tracker

Using the pricing listed therein, assuming that 75% of that goes to the studios (which I consider high), and assuming an average of 100K views per day at that price:

~ 21 days at $15 per rental to the studios, for 100K views per day, equals ~ $31.5 million
~ 65 days at $4.5 per rental to the studios, for 100K views per day, equals ~ $29.25 million
Totaling to ~ $60.75 million

Adjust views and studios' cut as needed.