D&D Movie/TV Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves At San Diego Comic-Con

Attendees of San Diego Comic-Con this year will be able to immerse themselves in a 'Tavern Experience' promoting the upcoming D&D movie, Honor Among Thieves, IGN reports. It will be a 20-minute experience in which you can interact with D&D critters and characters. Additionally, guests can try both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions of 'Dragon Brew'.

Additionally, on Thursday July 21st, during the convention, the films cast will be on stage and fans will get a sneak peek at the movie, which is due out next year.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves includes in its cast Chris Pine, Hugh Grant, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, and more.

D&D Movie/TV - Honor Among Thieves: The New D&D Movie Officially Announced

Paramount has announced the title of March 3rd, 2023's Dungeon's & Dragons movie -- and it's HONOR AMONG THIEVES! The cast includes some Hollywood heavyweights -- Chris Pine, Rege Jean Page, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, and others. The release date was announced back in August: ‘Dungeons...

www.enworld.org

 

[Jer]

Here it's hard to predict anything without a trailer, because it's all going to come down to chemistry and whether it seems fun.

And even trailers will lie to you. If they think the movie is going to be a real dog studios have shown they have no compunctions against cutting a trailer that includes the 3 best scenes from the movie in a way that makes you think "there's more like this to come" when in reality once you've seen the trailer you've seen the only things in the movie worth watching...

 

[OB1]

Here it's hard to predict anything without a trailer, because it's all going to come down to chemistry and whether it seems fun.

A million times this. GotG, Potter, Star Wars, LotR, you name it almost always comes down to the chemistry of the cast to make something a huge hit in theatres. I remember having to practically drag my wife to GotG (even though she's a Marvel, Star Wars and D&D fan) because she thought it looked 'lame', but now it's her favorite Marvel movie, largely because of the mix of chemistry and fun.

The hard part is it's almost impossible to nail casting for chemistry (though JJ Abrams is incredibly good at it, even if he's not great at story). Crossing my fingers that they got this right!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And even trailers will lie to you. If they think the movie is going to be a real dog studios have shown they have no compunctions against cutting a trailer that includes the 3 best scenes from the movie in a way that makes you think "there's more like this to come" when in reality once you've seen the trailer you've seen the only things in the movie worth watching...

A good trailer won't tell you anything, but if the trailer is bad, then you can be pretty certain the movie is worse.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yup, big variable. But it astounds me that I still see people assuming the 200 movie is a relevant precedent for how this will do, considering how different this production is.

Oh yeah that's pretty weird. This is a very different movie launching into a very different environment - one that is both potentially a lot more friendly to D&D, and to fantasy in general, but also significantly more capricious about what is good/cool in a movie, and standards for a "good movie" being a lot higher for action-adventure movies (I would suggest).

One issue that might predict things somewhat, that we don't know yet is budget.

The original D&D movie was, depending on who you ask, $35m to $45m, which was, for 2000, very mid-budget for any movie, and vastly lower than other SF/fantasy/historical movies that year. For example, the twinned Mars movies that came out that year had budgets of $100m and $75m, Supernova had $70m, Flintstones 2 had $68m, Gladiator was $103m, X-Men was $75m - you get the picture.

And that tiny budget trying to stretch to a movie which inevitably going to feature a lot of SFX and CGI obviously had a huge impact on how the movie looked, who they could cast (basically "nobodies + Jeremy Irons"), and so on. If the leads had been actually-cool actors and the SFX/CGI/etc. had been good, I think it's easy to see it at least becoming a cult movie and not a dire flop.

To make a decent-looking fantasy adventure these days you realistically need to be north of $120m at a dead minimum, and more likely close on $200m or even over that. You'd be shocked at what movies cost to make these days. Some highly experienced directors can do more with less, but there's no experienced directors here. Hopefully they haven't made the same mistake this time. People are assuming they haven't, but if we see a budget of anything south of $120m, they definitely have.

 

[Jer]

Overall I think you're right, but I'm trying to figure out if this:

who they could cast (basically "nobodies + Jeremy Irons"),

is more cruel to Marlon Wayans or the guy who played Jimmy Olsen in the Lois and Clark...

(Edit - also I always forget that Thora Birch was in that movie. I'll bet she prefers it that way...)

 

[darjr]

Overall I think you're right, but I'm trying to figure out if this:

is more cruel to Marlon Wayans or the guy who played Jimmy Olsen in the Lois and Clark...

Would it be worse if it was meant as a swipe or worse if they were just forgotten?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Overall I think you're right, but I'm trying to figure out if this:

is more cruel to Marlon Wayans or the guy who played Jimmy Olsen in the Lois and Clark...

(Edit - also I always forget that Thora Birch was in that movie. I'll bet she prefers it that way...)

Hey it's also pretty mean to Thora Birch. This was kind of her debut, but I don't think anyone even registered her until The Hole and Ghost World (REMEMBER HOW BIG THAT COMIC WAS?!?!? I only just did, what a flashback!) the next year.

Would it be worse if it was meant as a swipe or worse if they were just forgotten?

Well, I'd forgotten Jimmy Olsen... I did at least remember Marlon, because jeez, that was a... performance...

 

[Parmandur]

Oh yeah that's pretty weird. This is a very different movie launching into a very different environment - one that is both potentially a lot more friendly to D&D, and to fantasy in general, but also significantly more capricious about what is good/cool in a movie, and standards for a "good movie" being a lot higher for action-adventure movies (I would suggest).

One issue that might predict things somewhat, that we don't know yet is budget.

The original D&D movie was, depending on who you ask, $35m to $45m, which was, for 2000, very mid-budget for any movie, and vastly lower than other SF/fantasy/historical movies that year. For example, the twinned Mars movies that came out that year had budgets of $100m and $75m, Supernova had $70m, Flintstones 2 had $68m, Gladiator was $103m, X-Men was $75m - you get the picture.

And that tiny budget trying to stretch to a movie which inevitably going to feature a lot of SFX and CGI obviously had a huge impact on how the movie looked, who they could cast (basically "nobodies + Jeremy Irons"), and so on. If the leads had been actually-cool actors and the SFX/CGI/etc. had been good, I think it's easy to see it at least becoming a cult movie and not a dire flop.

To make a decent-looking fantasy adventure these days you realistically need to be north of $120m at a dead minimum, and more likely close on $200m or even over that. You'd be shocked at what movies cost to make these days. Some highly experienced directors can do more with less, but there's no experienced directors here. Hopefully they haven't made the same mistake this time. People are assuming they haven't, but if we see a budget of anything south of $120m, they definitely have.

Yeah, this for sure.

This has a number of prominent actors involved, so the casting budget is at least decent. The word on the street about the footage that was previewed earlier thus year was positive oj the SDX. It does seem that Paramount is making a go of it, time will tell how that works out.

 

[Jer]

Hey it's also pretty mean to Thora Birch. This was kind of her debut, but I don't think anyone even registered her until The Hole and Ghost World (REMEMBER HOW BIG THAT COMIC WAS?!?!? I only just did, what a flashback!) the next year.

I think the buzz around American Beauty was when I first started hearing her name and I vaguely remember recognizing her name in the movie when I heard about it coming out (though given the release dates it's pretty clear she'd filmed D&D before American Beauty even came out).

Well, I'd forgotten Jimmy Olsen... I did at least remember Marlon, because jeez, that was a... performance...

In all honesty - Jeremy Irons scenery chewing and Marlon Wayons ... performance ... are the two most memorable things about the movie.

 

[OB1]

Yeah, this for sure.

This has a number of prominent actors involved, so the casting budget is at least decent. The word on the street about the footage that was previewed earlier thus year was positive oj the SDX. It does seem that Paramount is making a go of it, time will tell how that works out.

Given the (very brief) footage I saw at CinemaCon, and how important this title seems to be with Paramount marketing execs, I'd guess a budget in the range of Bumblebee's $135M (2017) to Transformers $150M (2007) at a minimum. Given how important D&D is to Hasbro, and the built in merchandising opportunities if it successfully spawns a film franchise, I'd say $180-200M isn't out of the question.

At the very least, like Transformers, I'd expect a film that looks good, has solid action and is a nice popcorn flick. If the chemistry of the actors works (which I couldn't tell one way or another from the brief footage I saw) and the film is fun, it could be good to great.

The fact that they're at Comic-Con with a big presentation and booth is another sign that they're going all in on launching this as a franchise (and will spend what they need to make the film look good).