D&D Movie/TV Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves could change D&D forever

[Parmandur]

Well, among ME the Venn Diagram of the interest level between John Wick and the D&D isn't a perfect circle, it's a SPHERE.

Because John Wick is that awesome. And I also want to see the D&D movie.

Not on my 5 year old's radar the way Mario and D&D are, go figure.

 

[Jer]

That's true, but they are currently attempting to sell eOne, which was successful, albeit WotC strategically retained certain high-value IPs from it (which is probably why it hasn't found a buyer yet).

Also this is the wrong time to try to get someone to buy into a movie/tv studio. What with almost all of the major players who buy content currently having no consistent direction and sending very mixed signals about what the future is going to look like going forward. The streaming market being in chaos is not fun for the folks who make tv and films right now.

Really I couldn't think of a worse time to be trying to sell a tv/film production company, no matter what IP it has attached to it.

 

[Haplo781]

Also this is the wrong time to try to get someone to buy into a movie/tv studio. What with almost all of the major players who buy content currently having no consistent direction and sending very mixed signals about what the future is going to look like going forward. The streaming market being in chaos is not fun for the folks who make tv and films right now.

Really I couldn't think of a worse time to be trying to sell a tv/film production company, no matter what IP it has attached to it.

I'll give them a dollar for it

 

[Jer]

Because John Wick is that awesome. And I also want to see the D&D movie.

I don't know, I enjoyed Legend of the Five Rings back in the day but his more recent work has been...

Oh - not that John Wick. Right. Ok.

 

[Jer]

I'll give them a dollar for it

I think that's the problem. I'm not even sure they are getting folks making those kind of lowball offers.

And depending on how things go you could buy it for a dollar and still end up losing millions before you're all done...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The movie tanking will have a lot of repercussions. It would mean, that there will be no good movie for the next 25 years again. It might also mean a stop to all the money funneled into devolping actual good digital offerings and 3pp don't have the money to deliver.
All thaz does not mean that we should be silent on the OGL issue. But a boycot of the movie might hurt us more than WotC in the long run.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

There are still people that think of D&D as "uncool nerd crap" and "uncool devil crap." They're certainly not in the majority, but they are out there. I'm kinda shocked whenever I come across one of them, but those attitudes still float around.

But honestly I think we're past the point where stigma of any kind can really be an issue for D&D, except possibly the dread "That's fun but it's for old people" or "That was fun when I was a kid". D&D is currently pretty well-positioned to avoid that, given the core audience seems to be about 15-29 buuuuuuut all it would take would be an '80s-like situation where a lot of people just drift away from the game for it to perhaps acquire that stigma. I know loads of 30-40-somethings currently teaching their kids D&D, but will those kids go on to play it as adults, or will they leave it behind as a game for kids? I think that's in the balance, and I don't think D&D:HAT or sequels will actually make much odds to that.

"A fun and fairly well received film" would certainly be a step up from the previous offerings. And I'm fine with that. It doing well enough to start a franchise would be gravy.

Agree with basically everything here. I doubt that Honor Among Thieves will be a truly great movie, but if it is a fun and fairly well received film, it could have a positive impact on the hobby. Of it does well enough to get a sequel, however, it could be the first link in a chain of D&D becoming a pop culture fixture, particularly once filmmakers figure out theybcan throw in basically anything to the D&D stew.

The critical and financial failure of the first D&D movie didn't have many repercussions on the game (and hey, it paid for Jeremy Irons' castle). It didn't stop the next two movies from being made (albeit with ever-diminishing budgets and well, ever-diminishing everything). That being said, today's multimedia franchise entertainment environment is a very different one from 2000. But then again, if you look at the more recent 2016's Warcraft movie, did its failure have an effect on the game it was based on?

The movie tanking will have a lot of repercussions. It would mean, that there will be no good movie for the next 25 years again. It might also mean a stop to all the money funneled into devolping actual good digital offerings and 3pp don't have the money to deliver.
All thaz does not mean that we should be silent on the OGL issue. But a boycot of the movie might hurt us more than WotC in the long run.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There are still people that think of D&D as "uncool nerd crap" and "uncool devil crap." They're certainly not in the majority, but they are out there. I'm kinda shocked whenever I come across one of them, but those attitudes still float around.

When I run into them at work, I ask them to tell me about their fantasy football team. They usually go a good 60 seconds before they get the point and, typically, cool it after that.

 

[wingsandsword]

Right, even if the D&D movie draws a huge portion of the player base, it will need to appeal to general audiences to make it a smash. The OGL debacle will be meaningless if D&D takes off in a movie series. Wizbro can write off the TTRPG at that point. How big is the design and development team for Monopoly?

I do suspect that might be what they're hoping for. . .for D&D to become like Marvel, and be more of a movie and TV "franchise" where the original printed material that built it is relegated to a very minor part of the business.

I don't think that will work though, because Marvel is built on strong characters and good stories with a vast pool of lore to draw from. Even if your casual fan doesn't know the history of Iron Man or Black Panther past what they see on screen, the writers and producers of those movies have the benefit of decades of storylines, of characterization of heroes and villains from different writers, of a wealth of materials they can use to build on to create a good story.

D&D is mostly a game about people's own original characters, and largely about original worlds. Yes, there are the published campaign settings, with their own settings and own worlds. . .but we haven't seen any sign of them doing a Drizzt Do'Urden or Elminster movie, or a Rudolph Van Richten movie, or movies based on famous D&D adventures like Tomb of Horrors, Throne of Bloodstone, or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

D&D movies so far (including from what we've seen, the upcoming Honor Among Thieves) have been fairly generic fantasy stories that just incidentally use some D&D IP around monsters and magic and such, that could work as generic fantasy movies with only minor twiddling, just with the Dungeons and Dragons brand name attached.

That's not going to be the huge rainmaker that Hasbro is hoping for. . .I really don't think that making a fairly generic fantasy movie and slapping on the D&D brand will rake it in the way they're hoping.

 

[wingsandsword]

That being said, today's multimedia franchise entertainment environment is a very different one from 2000. But then again, if you look at the more recent 2016's Warcraft movie, did its failure have an effect on the game it was based on?

How was that Warcraft film funded?

It's my understanding that Hasbro fronted the money to make the new D&D movie themselves. They wagered their own money on this. If it bombs, they're out a LOT of money, not just some outside investors.

Trying to figure out the impact of the success or failure of the movie on D&D as a "franchise" would need to take into account if Hasbro is might be facing a very large loss if the movie flops.