D&D Movie/TV DADHAT becomes Netflix Global Hit

[Ferrousbones]

I've now heard from two people who might be in a position to know (they are in the Industry for sure) that the movie moved into the Black, financially speaking. It cannot be classified that way officially by the studio because they took a write-off and streaming revenue and licensing revenue is sort of shared out over multiple properties in a different category.

And I do not know what the "licensing" revenue is they mentioned. Both mentioned it though. Popcorn containers? Were there other licensed product sales associated specifically with the movie which were not Hasbro revenue?

Anyway these two people, in different ways, were looking at revenue post-theatrical and counting it with internal numbers. One claimed the marketing was not as high as people think, as a large chunk of production budget was Covid stoppages and not part of the calculation for marketing (he was implying nearly a 30% hit but that seems high?) I guess Marketing Budget is a percentage of planned production budget at the early stage, and is not calculated against unplanned expenditures.

I cannot say for sure if any of this is accurate. I didn't see any numbers myself, and I'm not sure I'd be able to parse them even if I had seen them. While both of these people do know quite a bit about some insider stuff, this was a very casual conversation. They also could have been BS'ing with me? They knew I was a D&D player that liked the movie.

I don't doubt that HAT reached the profitable stage, that seemed inevitable given its critical popularity.

The question is: How long did it take?

If it were 1-3 months, that should be easy justification for more production.

If it were 4-6 months, that would be a hard sell.

Even longer, basically the same as not turning a profit to the upper suits.

 

[bedir than]

he was implying nearly a 30% hit but that seems high?

Deadline backs that up for movies that had heavy travel during peak covid restrictions (Honor Among Thieves was filmed in four nations).

 

[Mistwell]

I don't doubt that HAT reached the profitable stage, that seemed inevitable given its critical popularity.

The question is: How long did it take?

If it were 1-3 months, that should be easy justification for more production.

If it were 4-6 months, that would be a hard sell.

Even longer, basically the same as not turning a profit to the upper suits.

That depends on what the Covid hit was, and what the rest of their slate looked like and looks like.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm sure D&D will get something eventually. But its not going to involve the people who made HoT a success. Which is basically square one again. We're not going to get anything as good as HoT again, and I doubt we'll get anything on par with Rings of Power or Game of Thrones level budgets because the property hasn't shown enough ROI.

I think the next tell will be how well Netflix's Magic: The Gathering project does. If its a success for Netflix, I could see them try the same trick with D&D. But if it fails to do the numbers Netflix wants, I imagine WotC is going to struggle to convince either property is a draw.

Not necessarily: Baldur's Gate 3 was very successful. A Netflix show on the scale of the Witcher or Shadow & Bone is not implausible.

 

[OptionalRule]

It's almost like increasing the accessibility and viewing options, instead of concocting contrived exercises in controlling your audience, actually opens up your show to more viewers.

Weird.

 

[Zardnaar]

Deadline backs that up for movies that had heavy travel during peak covid restrictions (Honor Among Thieves was filmed in four nations).

30% is similar to numbers thrown around elsewhere.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Deadline backs that up for movies that had heavy travel during peak covid restrictions (Honor Among Thieves was filmed in four nations).

Bit silly really. There are plenty of suitable locations within a day’s drive of Belfast. They really didn’t need all that travel. I have a feeling the film makers used it as an excuse to go off on a bit of a jolly.

 

[bedir than]

Bit silly really. There are plenty of suitable locations within a day’s drive of Belfast. They really didn’t all that travel. I have a feeling the film makers used it as an excuse to go off on a bit of a jolly.

I think there's only a single scene from the Iceland jaunt, and that wasn't part of the script, but the opportunity to film a real volcano that happened to be erupting.
Some of the dipping about was to take advantage of certain tax schemes (Ireland, UK and US State of Georgia).

 

[Azzy]

It's an old property now, but I'd love someone to do an adaptation of Larry Niven's Dream Park. The premise is of organised LARPing tournament games but in a closed-off park using actors and holographic projections to make it super-realistic, and there are two levels to the narrative - the in-game one of the competitors trying to figure out the plot and win, and also an actual murder-mystery in which a park staff member was killed and the circumstances make the players the chief pool of suspects, so the park's security chief is entered into the game as a player to investigate them.

Did you know that R. Talsorian Games made a licensed Dream Park TTRPG decades ago?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Other option could be the animation.