D&D Movie/TV Hasbro Getting Out Of The Movie Business

While Hasbro is forging ahead with its own Dungeons & Dragons video game, following the massive success of Baldur's Gate 3, the future of its film involvement is less rosy. In an article with Bloomberg featuring Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, it was revealed that the company won't be co-financing future movies following the underperformance of Honor Among Thieves and Transformers One.

The focus is moving towards video games. Cocks said to Bloomberg, "We want to reach fans where they want to play, and increasingly that is through digital expressions of their favorite brands".

Sony and Lions Gate will continue to make movies based on Hasbro properties, but Hasbro won't be involved in the financing.

Hasbro Confirms New Unannounced Dungeons & Dragons Video Game in Development

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has confirmed that an in-house studio is developing an unannounced Dungeons & Dragons video game. In a feature posted today on Bloomberg News, Cocks stated that Hasbro was actively developing a Dungeons & Dragons video game via one of its in-house studios. No further...

www.enworld.org

 

[CommodoreKong]

I'm not sure it's quite as negative for a sequel or other D&D movies as you suggest. WotC not financing it also means WotC not getting a share of the revenue, and likely means significantly less WotC interference in the movie being made. I genuinely think it might be easier to make a D&D movie without WotC, who are penny pinchers, capricious and have a lot of weird ideas.

As an aside, where are you getting that WotC/Hasbro were putting in 50% of the funding? I'm not saying they weren't, but I can't find any sources suggesting that they were, and it would be somewhat unusually neat and precise for an arrangement like that to be exactly a 50/50 split.

Here's a deadline article mentioning that eOne co-financed 50% of the movie:

Paramount Rolls Dice On ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Revamp, Eyes Possible $65M+ WW Opening – Box Office Preview

'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' Eyes $65M Global Box Office Bow

deadline.com

Yeah it might not be an exact 50/50 split but seems like it was close enough for a major Hollywood trade to report that number.

Here's the thing about getting a film made. Studios themselves don't usually put up all of the money for a movie to be made. They find outside investors, either individuals or firms, that are willing to invest in exchange to get a piece of the potential profits. Usually these investors are going to want a big budget blockbuster to do big business, because if it doesn't it just would have been a smarter choice to invest in stock market or something else.
Honor Among Thieves didn't light the world on fire at the box office. Maybe it eventually limped to profitability but that's not want investors in a potential sequel would want to see from the first film. With Hasbro even if the film did eventually cross into the black and make them a small amount they obviously befit from a well made film with the D&D brand since they own D&D. Paramount and other investors not so much.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Here's a deadline article mentioning that eOne co-financed 50% of the movie:

Paramount Rolls Dice On ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Revamp, Eyes Possible $65M+ WW Opening – Box Office Preview

'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' Eyes $65M Global Box Office Bow

deadline.com

Yeah it might not be an exact 50/50 split but seems like it was close enough for a major Hollywood trade to report that number.

Here's the thing about getting a film made. Studios themselves don't usually put up all of the money for a movie to be made. They find outside investors, either individuals or firms, that are willing to invest in exchange to get a piece of the potential profits. Usually these investors are going to want a big budget blockbuster to do big business, because if it doesn't it just would have been a smarter choice to invest in stock market or something else.
Honor Among Thieves didn't light the world on fire at the box office. Maybe it eventually limped to profitability but that's not want investors in a potential sequel would want to see from the first film. With Hasbro even if the film did eventually cross into the black and make them a small amount they obviously befit from a well made film with the D&D brand since they own D&D. Paramount and other investors not so much.

Thank you for the source!

Re: the reasoning about Hasbro being needed, I'm just not sure I entirely believe that it's a real night and day difference. Hasbro are penny-pinchers and capricious, as I've said, so I doubt they'd ever have gone 50% on a sequel anyway, and I suspect their interference (which there definitely was some of given the 50% split as you say) was probably not exactly helpful to DADHAT.

I think what is unlikely is an actual sequel to DADHAT, but was that ever likely?

However, I suspect that with a compelling enough script, a D&D-based movie is still a plausible enough prospect.

 

[payn]

Here's a deadline article mentioning that eOne co-financed 50% of the movie:

Paramount Rolls Dice On ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Revamp, Eyes Possible $65M+ WW Opening – Box Office Preview

'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' Eyes $65M Global Box Office Bow

deadline.com

Yeah it might not be an exact 50/50 split but seems like it was close enough for a major Hollywood trade to report that number.

Here's the thing about getting a film made. Studios themselves don't usually put up all of the money for a movie to be made. They find outside investors, either individuals or firms, that are willing to invest in exchange to get a piece of the potential profits. Usually these investors are going to want a big budget blockbuster to do big business, because if it doesn't it just would have been a smarter choice to invest in stock market or something else.
Honor Among Thieves didn't light the world on fire at the box office. Maybe it eventually limped to profitability but that's not want investors in a potential sequel would want to see from the first film. With Hasbro even if the film did eventually cross into the black and make them a small amount they obviously befit from a well made film with the D&D brand since they own D&D. Paramount and other investors not so much.

Not to whip D&D so harshly (DADHAT is a fine movie) but most films are struggling to make it with theatrical releases. They shot the moon thinking it could break into blockbuster territory and it just ran out of gas. Thats not a knock, its just not the same business anymore.

 

[Parmandur]

Not to whip D&D so harshly (DADHAT is a fine movie) but most films are struggling to make it with theatrical releases. They shot the moon thinking it could break into blockbuster territory and it just ran out of gas. Thats not a knock, its just not the same business anymore.

In 2012-2019, the same movie could have done way better.

I loved the film, but I didn't see it in theaters because I didn't feel safe. It took until Deadpool & Wolverine for me to go back to the theater, and now I'm not sure when I will go again. Hard to justify the risks at the costs involved when I have 4K streaming options out the wazoo now (like, I can stream my UHD copy of Honor Among Thieves anytime I feel like it).

 

[Joshua Randall]

Transformers movies were pretty big.

Paramount / Dreamworks movies using Hasbro brand. Fundamentally different from Hasbro being “in” the movie business.

 

[Deset Gled]

Paramount / Dreamworks movies using Hasbro brand. Fundamentally different from Hasbro being “in” the movie business.

Hasbro Entertainment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MGibster]

Yeah, unfortunate reality that delivering a quality movie does not mean success at tge box office.

Sometimes movies either never find an audience or they find them later. When The Thing was released in 1982 it was a critical and commercial failure and it took nearly a decade before it was reassessed. Last time I watched The Thing I could scarcely believe it was thought of so poorly at the time. It's just a great movie.

Is HAT a great movie? Nah. But it's a fun movie and I think it deserved a bit more success. It's been successful on streaming services so maybe it's popularity will grow.

 

[delericho]

That's a shame. D&DHAT was probably never getting a sequel, but it was a fun enough film. And the Transformers films had been slowly improving (from a very low base).

 

[mamba]

So instead they double down on computer games, let’s see how that goes. The potential to make it big or lose a lot of money in unpredictable ways is not really much smaller there than in Hollywood…

 

[Parmandur]

So instead they double down on computer games, let’s see how that goes. The potential to make it big or lose a lot of money in unpredictable ways is not really much smaller there than in Hollywood…

Well, no, it is actually "easier" to get a decent hit ratio in video games...and the hits are bigger! Thing is, the logistics for films are absurd, and have tight time and physical constraints. Video games can get delayed a year for polishing, go through years of iteration...movie cannot.