Dungeons & Dragons Comments On Possibility of Future Movie Projects

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.

 

[mamba]

Video games do. Baldur's Gate 3 had a budget of $100M

agreed, but I am not aware of WotC / Hasbro creating one based on D&D

 

[mamba]

Hasbro only spent 75 on production (unless they didn't cover any overruns, in which case they spent 50 on production).

that is not really changing the argument all that much though

 

[Zardnaar]

Video games do. Baldur's Gate 3 had a budget of $100M and that was considered p reasonable since Larian isn't/wasn't a AAA company. A D&D game made by a AAA studio might have a budget of $200M or more (for example, Bethesda spent $300M-$400M on Starfield).

D&D game won't get a big budget from a AAA studio. They don't own the IP.

100 million is a cheap AAA as well now.

 

[Parmandur]

The movie will probably eventually crawl its way to profitability from things like VOD, streaming rights, TV rights, blu ray sales, etc but I’m sure it’s a long slow climb and hasn’t made its way there yet.

Most movies are co-financed by wealthy investors or companies that get a piece of the profits. These sorts of people and companies aren’t going to be that interested in co-financing a sequel to a film that maybe has crawled its way to being profitable. They want something that will earn them a big payday.

I think that's true even if they have managed to cross the line to profitability already.

 

[Parmandur]

if they spent $150M making them, not so sure… but outside of DDB or the VTT nothing D&D comes close to costing that much

Right, but the fact that a movie like that takes $150 million to happen versus what a TTRPG costs to produce is my point: 8 million people is a lot for some things, anemic for others.

 

[Burnside]

D&D game won't get a big budget from a AAA studio. They don't own the IP.

A AAA might - MIGHT - license it only because of the extreme success of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Of course, a AAA also might realize, as the Solasta team does, that they can effectively make a D&D game without WotC due to the 5.1 SRD being in Creative Commons.

 

[Chaltab]

A AAA might - MIGHT - license it only because of the extreme success of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Of course, a AAA also might realize, as the Solasta team does, that they can effectively make a D&D game without WotC due to the 5.1 SRD being in Creative Commons.

I mean they can, but the Solasta team did make that game through special agreement, not through OGL/CC

 

[Quartz]

Just going to point out that Honor Among Thieves made a profit.

No film ever makes a profit. That's Hollywood law.

 

[AlViking]

No film ever makes a profit. That's Hollywood law.

It's why actors should never, ever base their salary on the profits of a movie. No matter what the box office and how much the people supporting the movie get there's never any money left above and beyond "expenses".

 

[Zardnaar]

It's why actors should never, ever base their salary on the profits of a movie. No matter what the box office and how much the people supporting the movie get there's never any money left above and beyond "expenses".

Smart ones use a % of the box office take.