Dungeons & Dragons Comments On Possibility of Future Movie Projects

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Wizards of the Coast is "exploring" the possibility of new Dungeons & Dragons movie and TV projects. In the build up to the release of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Hasbro seemed to have an ambitious D&D Cinematic Universe plan in place. Although the movie underperformed, Paramount+ still picked up a Dungeons & Dragons television show with Rawson Marshall Thurber as the pilot script writer and director of the first episode and Drew Crevello as the showrunner.

However, Hasbro's sale of eOne, its in-house entertainment studio seems to have caused those plans to come crashing to a halt. The Paramount+ TV show was announced as no longer moving forward last year and other loose plans to continue a shared D&D universe seems dead in the water.

Despite the underperformance of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the movie was spoken fondly of and often during an EN World press visit to Wizards of the Coast headquarters last week. When asked if this talk meant we'd be getting an update on a possible sequel, Jess Lanzillo, the VP of the D&D franchise at Wizards, said "Not officially, no."

However, it appears interest remains high in possible future D&D projects. "After I joined the team at the end of Q1 2024, we kind of reestablished our relationship with a lot of studios and partners," Lanzillo said. "And we're doing a lot of exploration. We basically have aligned our philosophy to we want to pair up with the best creators and let them tell the best stories that they already know how to do, because all of these people started telling stories through playing D&D. And through that, there are a series of explorations that we are very, very excited about. When we're ready to announce them, we will let you know."

Reading in between the lines, it appears that decoupling from eOne has opened up the possibility of other studios and partners jumping into a D&D live-action or animated project. We'll have to see if it will be another 12 years in between Dungeons & Dragons movies.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


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Animated is the way to go. Something like Vox Machina or Twilight of the Gods.

Honor Among Thieves had its fans, but was ultimately a flop financially. Another movie in that vein will not be profitable.
 


I don't know if you got an answer yet, but total box office was about $208 million.

I picked about 200 million after it's opening weekend.

It was in trouble week 1, week 2 looked worse and week 3 conformed it.

I lurk on the box office sub reddit. You generally know how good a movie will do before release now.
 

The production budget was $150 million. Paramount also spent $61 million marketing it. So it cost at least $211 million.

Also, the gross box office was about $208 million, but that is before being split between the studios and the theaters. Even if the studios got 2/3 of that, that would be about $140 million, which would be a $50 million dollar loss. (even if the studios got it all, box office is still less than total cost)

So, no, Honor Among Thieves didn't make a profit in theaters.

It might have made a profit in streaming, but months after reaching streaming, Hasbro basically declared a $25 million loss on the movie in its next quarterly statement.
I think they ultimately ended up making money...but not huge margins, considering the outlay of capital.

Pity.
 

D&D: Honour Among Thieves is a well made, well performed action comedy that goes for, and successfully achieves, the vibe of a pretty good MCU film.
I think it was Honest Trailers that described it as "What if a Marvel movie was as charming as it thought it was?" Which I think is pretty spot on.

Pine has always lowkey been the best Chris, and DAD:HAT was genuinely a very good, very fun movie. Word of mouth just failed to get enough butts in the seats.
 

I think it was Honest Trailers that described it as "What if a Marvel movie was as charming as it thought it was?" Which I think is pretty spot on.

Pine has always lowkey been the best Chris, and DAD:HAT was genuinely a very good, very fun movie. Word of mouth just failed to get enough butts in the seats.
The crazy thing ia, they did get a lot of butter in seats: the U.S take indicates like 8 million tickets were sold in the U.S. The economics of such a big movie and modern movie theaters just made the bar for success crazy high. If WotC sold 8 million books, they would probably be over the moon.
 

The production budget was $150 million. Paramount also spent $61 million marketing it. So it cost at least $211 million.

Also, the gross box office was about $208 million, but that is before being split between the studios and the theaters. Even if the studios got 2/3 of that, that would be about $140 million, which would be a $50 *$70 million dollar loss. (even if the studios got it all, box office is still less than total cost) Edit: Apparently my brain is a little rusty. Mathed the loss wrong.

So, no, Honor Among Thieves didn't make a profit in theaters.

It might have made a profit in streaming, but months after reaching streaming, Hasbro basically declared a $25 million loss on the movie in its next quarterly statement.
the OGL fiasco probably swallowed up the impact of all their marketing; hasbro sabotaged themselves LOL
 

I think an animated show could be aimed at a fairly mature audience while still being okay for the kids. You don't really need explicit sex scenes or swearing to make a good DnD show, and keep the violence relatively blood free. I remember going to Shrek years ago and laughing at scenes that some kiddos in front of us just didn't get, but we both enjoyed the movie.
yep, even Star Trek just released an animated show that is doing really well, so it can definitely market to adults, anime and animation is huge globally
 


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