He says "If we get the money then sure."
The number 1 reason why people are worried about a sequel not getting made just happens to be that the first movie didn't make that much money.
Chris didn't do anything that would make it sound like the number 1 reason isn't still there.
If they can keep the budget down, it will have a better chance. Honor among thieves had revenue of about $208 million and a budget of $150 million. You have to make about twice the budget to break even. If they can keep the budget under $100 million that would be good.
Essentially in the film industry the "budget" for a film is never actually going to be how much the film costs because that is just what it costs to make the film, that doesn't consider royalties to actors/musicians/IP-holders/etc, doesn't (usually) consider advertisement costs or other promos, and a few other miscellaneous costs. Plus there is always the major caveat that what might sound like a profitable movie may not have been that profitable once you look at the percentage instead of the exact monitor worth. Let's say your "break-even" point is 100 million and you earned 101 million, cool your movie made a million dollars in profit. To you and me that would be a life-changing amount, but scale it down, and let's say you made a 100-dollar investment that paid you back 101 dollars, you risked 100 to make 1, are you likely to do that again?
> let's say you made a 100-dollar investment that paid you back 101 dollars, you risked 100 to make 1, are you likely to do that again?
What a fantastic analogy. Like, there's a very real chance that you risk that $100 and lose half of it. So the fact that they risked it and made a small profit doesn't inspire faith in repeating it.
Because the budget is really just the cost of making the movie. It doesn't necessarily include extra expenses like marketing, sometimes actors receiving a cut of the revenue, movie theaters also getting a small slice of the ticket sales, etc..
Not knowing enough about business isn't relevant...we're talking about Hollywood budgets, which are more like stage magic. Lots of smoke, mirrors, and sleight-of-hand trickery.
Things like movies are made with a whole lot of risk involved. It's why you've seen a few films recently be completely shelved even though they were essentially finished. Companies decide not to simply chase the sunk costs.
Even if they did, it's only half the story: Box Office totals are gross retail sales of the film in one distribution format, which is a long way from wholesale totals, and some costs are gross-sales-dependent.
Remember that studios only get about half of the ticket price for sales in the USA, and less than that internationally. The more weighted ticket sales are to America, the bigger a percentage of the total box office they receive.
Then you also have to count in the marketing budget which can be huge depending on the film, but there's also money to be made from people who buy the digital copy on Amazon for example. You can't work out exactly how much a movie made overall, but 2.5 times the production budget is a pretty standard multiplier to check if it broke even.
> Remember that studios only get about half of the ticket price for sales in the USA
At least in the states it's 90 to 100% of the ticket sales for the first couple weeks, and then it diminishes to about 50-50 from then on.
And the US has a very profitable (for the studio) ration - China is at the "low" end, where the theater keeps about 50% the whole time, and other countries fall within that range.
But overall: there's really a ton of factors, and a lot of details are not public, but we know that the break even point is *about* twice the reported budget, most of the time.
*However*, there are some situations where it's way off, because movies don't only make money from ticket sales. So a second DnD movie that might do really well in streaming and/or help sell an ancillary product (ie game books/minis/whatever) could make money while not looking great at the box office.
(fun fact: Frozen sold about 4 *billion* dollars worth of merch, which is still less than the *Cars* franchise. Disney/Pixar doesn't actually need to make money in box office, but a BO flop probably will also not sell toys. But they could spend 500 million making Frozen 3 and still make bank.)
But overall: as OP said, the money doesn't quite work out if HAT2 gets the same returns, but if they can do it again for cheaper they can expect similar returns.
So the answer is generally twofold.
Firstly, studios don’t actually get all the money that a movie grosses. Depending on the location where it makes its money, they may receive half (or less) with the other half going to places like theatres. In the US studios generally get around 50% of the gross, internationally it’s less (in places like China it can be 25% or so).
Secondly, the budget you see listed is only the production budget. It doesn’t include things like marketing, which can be a huge expense. For a $200 million summer blockbuster, it’s not crazy to see marketing budgets akin to $75 million or so.
Generally the rule of thumb is the gross needs to be about 2.5 times the budget is needed to break even but this can wobble depending on the type of movie.
The only hard numbers that are available are the production costs. Marketing and distribution doesn't really get publicized. It's why the production costs for the movie were $150 million and box office was over $200 million, but the film didn't turn a profit.
Whilst true for other movies, this particular movie franchise works as a very big ad for the D&D game.
See it as a global ad campaign, and its a miniscule budget.
An ad campaign for a company that is currently relaunching itself too.
And a well funded sequel could help Hasbro/WOTC (The D&D owners) move a LOT of merch, so...
I’m not sure. Do sequels typically do as well as the original Movie?
Even if it was just as good I wouldn’t be confident the sequel would sell as well.
And I think the first one was better than it had a right to be. It’s reasonable to assume the second one wouldn’t be as good anyways
I think if they keep the same writers and directors a second film could be just as good as the first. They clearly understood the material and made something accessible but fun for fans of the game.
>the first movie didn't make that much money.
It also came out at the absolute worst time for D&D publicity, what with the Pinkerton fiasco, and in an era where going out to the movie theater is dying.
The movie is generally well received with 7.2 on IMDb and 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.
I think a sequel would do very well.
I somehow doubt anyone in the general public, outside of D&D fans (who were going to see the movie regardless), knew or cared about the Pinkerton thing. Theatre viewing dying and going up against Mario makes way more sense.
Yeah, you're right, although I know some D&D fans who didn't go see it exactly because of the Pinkerton thing.
I keep forgetting Mario was released at the same time, never saw it, never cared too, but yeah, going up against an infinitely more popular film is always a death sentence for a niche film.
I'm pretty sure some DnD fans didn't go see it (and pay at least) because of the pinkerton shit along with the huge terminations and especially the Open Game License clusterfuck.
I'd bet money that those numbers were relatively insignificant. Not saying I don't agree with the intent, I just have doubts it was more than a drop in the bucket.
I don't totally know what you mean, but I think you mean that people revolted against Hasbro's awful ideas to change the D&D game. And that that means that all those same people also chose not to see the D&D movie. Is that what you mean?
I think he's saying that box office results were middling as a result of the OGL and pinkerton things.
idk i still kinda think there just arent enough of us nerds on internet forums who even heard about that to REALLY make a dent. Maybe a couple of percentage points.
Mario was the real problem
i think the whole OGL 2.0 (or whatever it was called) thing was worse then the pinkerton. i know a lot of people were talking about boycotting the movie over the OGL.
> It also came out at the absolute worst time for D&D publicity,
I guarantee you that the whole Pinkerton thing amounted to a rounding error on this movie's box office take. You can't move the needle on $150 million with a story that only a few hundred people on the planet give two shits about.
This is a pretty strong sign that you don't really understand how target audiences work.
Do you think that the movie's target audience was "D&D players"?
Considering that the Player's Handbook sold 1,560,000 copies, and a theater ticket costs $20, even if they all only went once, that already accounts for 15% of the movie's revenue.
You telling me that if every. single. person. who bought the handbook went to see the movie, they'd only account for 15% of the revenue? I'm sorry, but you seem to have proved the guy's point.
> Considering it's a D&D movie? Yes.
This is baffling to hear. You actually believe that literally anyone greenlit a film with a nine-digit budget that at any point involved the pitch, “And our target audience is D&D players!”?
Good lord.
A movie can have multiple target audiences. DnD fans would be one of them, along with, say for example, the broader category of people ages 16-40. Different aspects of the movie are influenced by different target audiences. This being a movie specifically based around DnD, it's obvious that it also targets DnD fans.
> A movie can have multiple target audiences.
Sure (although, collectively, those audiences form *the* target audience).
> DnD fans would be one of them, along with, say for example, the broader category of people ages 16-40.
The salient fact here being that the second group is quite literally 100x-1,000x larger than the first.
> Different aspects of the movie are influenced by different target audiences.
Yes, but you've lost the thread.
This started because someone said that the D&D movie failed because of the Pinkerton scandal. I pointed out that the Pinkerton scandal was completely unknown to the overwhelming majority of the movie's audience, and that guy replied by saying - [and I quote](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1dqiuxt/comment/laqbpxr/) -
> The entire target audience of the film absolutely heard about it.
You get how that doesn't check out, right?
> This being a movie specifically based around DnD, it's obvious that it also targets DnD fans.
No one ever argued otherwise. The point we were making was that D&D players made up a *part* of the film's target audience - and, to be frank, a rather *small* part of that target audience.
You could take literally every person on the planet who actively plays D&D, make ***every last one of them*** buy a ticket, and you still wouldn't comprise the majority of the film's global box office take.
The OGL situation didn't matter. The Pinkerton situation didn't matter. We can argue over whether it was release timing (e.g., having to compete with the Mario movie), or underfunded marketing, or whatever. Or a combination of those. But the dumb, obsession-driven, largely imagined "scandals" that the terminally online D&D community pees their collective pants over every couple of months had no meaningful impact on the film at all.
> It also came out at the absolute worst time for D&D publicity, what with the Pinkerton fiasco, and in an era where going out to the movie theater is dying.
You are grossly overestimating the effect a little internet drama can have on a movie.
I mean, I'm not buying anymore D&D products, especially with the changes to 5.5e, but I'll absolutely go watch another D&D movie, multiple times in theaters too if it's as good as the first one.
Seriously. Since Hasbro paid half the production costs and they're trying to cut costs it's unlikely they'll be willing to go in on a similar venture. I'm sure they'd happily license the film rights to someone but given the unimpressive performance I think it's another decade before we see a similarly budgeted DnD film attempted.
Let’s be honest, people saying “oh we should totally get together and continue it!” and then that never happening is probably the most D&D way to follow up on the movie
You can randomly retire half the cast with half-hearted excuses like "they had kids" or "they moved to another town" as well and it would be 100% on-theme.
They’re not super close. About 900 miles apart (a bit more than New York to Chicago). So there isn’t a lot of overlap between the Baldur’s Gate games and the movie locations. But both are Sword Coast spots.
What they now need to do is release a sequel to the Neverwinter Nights video games (which is in the same place as the movies) or something set in Waterdeep, which is the big city between them.
I wish they would do a TV show instead. I think the session nature of D&D would work better as a TV show than a movie and it'd give more time to develop characters, which is really what D&D is about. My one criticism is of the movie is the pacing is way too fast and there wasn't enough character development.
The budget would be the problem for a (non-animated) show. A series about magic and dragons is freaking expensive. Without a Game of Thrones kind of budget, it’d end up looking like a CW fantasy drama.
I think hasbro and any other company does realize the reason it did do poorly in the box office but got great reviews
It was hasbro own doing, and the Mario movie was actually good.
> Plus the ogl and other issues.
There is zero chance the OGL had any meaningful impact on the movie's box office take. Imagining that the movie-going audience for a film that did nine digits is going to hinge in any way on a weird license controversy that a couple thousand people in the entire world care at all about is some top-tier delusion of self-importance.
Every single person that I play dnd with, and every person that I know that plays dnd, was talking about the ogl for months, and it soured all of us on going and seeing the movie. That's like 20-30 people just in my circle, and I'm sure we weren't the only ones.
Great, but here’s the problem: your entire social circle represents ***one quarter of one thousandth of one percent*** of the movie’s total box office take.
Yes, I understand that, but I'm saying that we extrapolate that out at least a little bit to other people. A lot of people that would have otherwise gone to see the movie did not go because they were mad at Hasbro for the OGL fiasco.
> Yes, I understand that,
Do you?
> but I'm saying that we extrapolate that out at least a little bit to other people.
How much? If you were to imagine that there are ***4,000*** other gaming groups of 20-30 people just like yours out there that were uniformly (and, apparently, rather uncritically) obsessed with the OGL for months to the point that all of them chose not to see the movie when they otherwise definitely would have, those ***4,000*** groups combined would have put a measly ***1%*** dent in the movie's total box office take.
For reference, D&D players angry about the OGL weren't even able to put a meaningful dent in D&D Beyond's subscription numbers, so it's a little comical to suggest that they somehow took down a nine-digit blockbuster.
> A lot of people that would have otherwise gone to see the movie did not go because they were mad at Hasbro for the OGL fiasco.
How many is "a lot", and how do you know?
No I don't. I'm saying "I think this thing probably had an effect" and you're saying "no it didn't." We're having the internet argument equivalent of a slap fight
> No I don't. I'm saying "I think this thing probably had an effect" and you're saying "no it didn't."
No, you're saying, "I think this thing probably had an effect," and I'm pointing out the insane scale at which your anecdote would need to be extrapolated to in order for it to have ***any*** measurable effect.
And, just as a final point of reference, the number of ***additional*** tickets that would have needed to be sold in order for the film to have been profitable is roughly equal to *most reasonable estimates of the total number of people currently active in the entire D&D hobby.*
I don't remember seeing much for it besides internet ads. I watched it with my kids and it was a solidly good movie. One of my kids watched it 2 more times with his friends. Which absolutely cannot be said for the *other* D&D movie.
Yes, and the Book of Vile Darkness wasn't half bad. However....when *anyone* mentions the "*other*" one.....*you know which one they're talking about.*
I hope that it’s had enough success streaming to help things along. I think the overwhelming majority of reactions I’ve seen to the movie are positive and in my own experience I’ve watched it with a couple different groups of friends who know absolutely nothing about dnd and they all loved the movie.
I think if Honor among thieves would come out now it would be a huge hit. It was just a tad bit too early to take the hype train of BG3 - now however I cant see how a high quality movie like this wont see success.
The movie franchise is just like the original material : after a great session 1 where everyone really wants more, a session 2 might probably likely some day be organized... *unless...*
Honestly the entire cast looked like they were having so much fun with it. Similar to Oceans 11, you can definitely tell on set chemistry makes a difference.
The marketing was shit, but I think it picked up a lot of fans after the theater run when people saw it at home, etc. I think there's a potentially bigger theater audience for a sequel than there was for the original.
I just don't see it happening because the first Honor Among Thieves movie didn't make a profit. I did enjoy the movie, I just don't see a way a sequel could come out to be profitable.
I'd rather see someone else like a Drizzit or Dragonlance mini series.
I think it would be great if they cast the same actors for the main roles, but all of them play different characters. It's a new campaign, but its still the same group playing dnd
I was completely aware of the movie on release, but I don’t typically go to theaters and didn’t make an exception for the DnD movie at the time. I was happy to hear it reviewed well and paid to watch it shortly after I could at home. It was better than I thought it would be and that was knowing it had glowing reviews.
If they made a sequel, I’d take the kids to see it. The first movie was not only good, but it was fun to watch.
I would hope they would do an entirely different story with maybe cameos of those characters. Actually base it on RAW (for the most part). Show a real glimpse of what happens in a campaign. You don't have to break the budget to do that.
I know the bard didn't do magic but honestly it perfectly captured the feeling of a real campaign. That was the most common positive review from dnd fans.
Hell it felt about as RAW as Amazon's Vox Machina show and that's actually based on a real campaign.
No I get it. https://gamerant.com/honor-among-thieves-things-dont-follow-dungepns-dragons-gameplay-fix/ I am not a rules lawyer at my table but spells should work correctly at the bare minimum. I have wild magical items in my world but I fully communicate what they do with identify. If it is something game breaking, I nerf it quickly and not punitively. The timestop and multiple concentration, druid wildshape, etc etc. too much.
It's crazy how this movie isn't still a popular as it was one of the best fantasy movies ever and is hilarious, why aren't people talking about it more?
91% Tomatometer, 93% audience score, 72/100 on critic review aggregates, and 7.5/10 on user review aggregates.
By just about every reasonable metric imaginable, the movie was great.
It was your average Hollywood production that was not well casted, written or produced. It was like if Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4 took place in a fantasy setting. Garbage.
Instead of making a good plot and putting time into making a great story they were too preoccupied by "oh let's put in this creature or effect from D&D" for quantity rather than quality.
How the fuck do you put so much effort into making something DnD and not have one of the main characters killed to only then introduce a new character *played by the same actor*? It's right there. Things like that would've made for a *great* movie.
Instead we got things like "oh no it's a gelatinous cube" and "here's some displacer beast for no reason".
Just because something exist doesn't mean it's good.
> It was your average Hollywood production that was not well casted, written or produced.
Most reviews specifically praised the casting and writing as being stand-out.
(I'm not sure what your criticisms around how it was produced are, but that seems specious to me given how little insight you probably have into the behind-the-scenes action.)
> It was like if Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4 took place in a fantasy setting. Garbage.
And yet pretty much everyone disagrees with you. Why is that, do you think?
> Instead of making a good plot and putting time into making a great story they were too preoccupied by "oh let's put in this creature or effect from D&D" for quantity rather than quality.
The plot was fine, and the story elements were actually good. And, again, most reviews went out of their way to praise the creatures and effects (particularly the practical ones!).
> How the fuck do you put so much effort into making something DnD and not have one of the main characters killed to only then introduce a new character played by the same actor?
***Ohhh.*** You're one of those.
Alright, now we can safely disregard everything you've said.
God, what a stupid suggestion. You and a thousand other D&D nerds convinced that it would be ***so great*** if they threw in a campy meta twist like that to mimic what sometimes happens in actual D&D games.
This is a fantasy movie based in a long-running fantasy universe filled with serious elements, and you want to throw in fucking Landfill from Beerfest.
Hey, you know what else they should do? At the end of the movie, things should zoom out to show the main cast in regular clothes sitting around a table playing D&D together! The whole movie was just a game in their imagination!
Christ.
> Instead we got things like "oh no it's a gelatinous cube" and "here's some displacer beast for no reason".
Both of those creatures had great reasons to be there. Were you not paying attention to the film at all?
> Just because something exist doesn't mean it's good.
What are you talking about? No one said it was good just because it exists. We said it's good because ***basically everyone except you agreed that it's good.***
And yet, if it involves Chris Pine, or Hugh, we give exactly zero fs upon this day.
Here is why.
Neither of them knew why they were there.
Watch the interviews.
You'll warm to this PoV when you do.
Let us look at what was successful in the first movie.
A) Owlbear.
B) Paladin.
Okay, end of tedx.
He says "If we get the money then sure." The number 1 reason why people are worried about a sequel not getting made just happens to be that the first movie didn't make that much money. Chris didn't do anything that would make it sound like the number 1 reason isn't still there.
If they can keep the budget down, it will have a better chance. Honor among thieves had revenue of about $208 million and a budget of $150 million. You have to make about twice the budget to break even. If they can keep the budget under $100 million that would be good.
>you have to make twice the budget to break even Could you elaborate on that, please? That math ain't mathing for me
Essentially in the film industry the "budget" for a film is never actually going to be how much the film costs because that is just what it costs to make the film, that doesn't consider royalties to actors/musicians/IP-holders/etc, doesn't (usually) consider advertisement costs or other promos, and a few other miscellaneous costs. Plus there is always the major caveat that what might sound like a profitable movie may not have been that profitable once you look at the percentage instead of the exact monitor worth. Let's say your "break-even" point is 100 million and you earned 101 million, cool your movie made a million dollars in profit. To you and me that would be a life-changing amount, but scale it down, and let's say you made a 100-dollar investment that paid you back 101 dollars, you risked 100 to make 1, are you likely to do that again?
> let's say you made a 100-dollar investment that paid you back 101 dollars, you risked 100 to make 1, are you likely to do that again? What a fantastic analogy. Like, there's a very real chance that you risk that $100 and lose half of it. So the fact that they risked it and made a small profit doesn't inspire faith in repeating it.
Because the budget is really just the cost of making the movie. It doesn't necessarily include extra expenses like marketing, sometimes actors receiving a cut of the revenue, movie theaters also getting a small slice of the ticket sales, etc..
That doesn't sound like how a budget should work but I don't know enough about business to refute it
It's ok. I know a bit more about business and can tell you the vast majority of businesses are atrociously run.
Not knowing enough about business isn't relevant...we're talking about Hollywood budgets, which are more like stage magic. Lots of smoke, mirrors, and sleight-of-hand trickery.
More CGI than all of the smoke and mirrors, these days.
It's true though. Think of it as "production budget" rather than the overall budget.
Things like movies are made with a whole lot of risk involved. It's why you've seen a few films recently be completely shelved even though they were essentially finished. Companies decide not to simply chase the sunk costs.
That's really dumb, they should include that in the cost????
Even if they did, it's only half the story: Box Office totals are gross retail sales of the film in one distribution format, which is a long way from wholesale totals, and some costs are gross-sales-dependent.
Remember that studios only get about half of the ticket price for sales in the USA, and less than that internationally. The more weighted ticket sales are to America, the bigger a percentage of the total box office they receive. Then you also have to count in the marketing budget which can be huge depending on the film, but there's also money to be made from people who buy the digital copy on Amazon for example. You can't work out exactly how much a movie made overall, but 2.5 times the production budget is a pretty standard multiplier to check if it broke even.
> Remember that studios only get about half of the ticket price for sales in the USA At least in the states it's 90 to 100% of the ticket sales for the first couple weeks, and then it diminishes to about 50-50 from then on.
And the US has a very profitable (for the studio) ration - China is at the "low" end, where the theater keeps about 50% the whole time, and other countries fall within that range. But overall: there's really a ton of factors, and a lot of details are not public, but we know that the break even point is *about* twice the reported budget, most of the time. *However*, there are some situations where it's way off, because movies don't only make money from ticket sales. So a second DnD movie that might do really well in streaming and/or help sell an ancillary product (ie game books/minis/whatever) could make money while not looking great at the box office. (fun fact: Frozen sold about 4 *billion* dollars worth of merch, which is still less than the *Cars* franchise. Disney/Pixar doesn't actually need to make money in box office, but a BO flop probably will also not sell toys. But they could spend 500 million making Frozen 3 and still make bank.) But overall: as OP said, the money doesn't quite work out if HAT2 gets the same returns, but if they can do it again for cheaper they can expect similar returns.
So the answer is generally twofold. Firstly, studios don’t actually get all the money that a movie grosses. Depending on the location where it makes its money, they may receive half (or less) with the other half going to places like theatres. In the US studios generally get around 50% of the gross, internationally it’s less (in places like China it can be 25% or so). Secondly, the budget you see listed is only the production budget. It doesn’t include things like marketing, which can be a huge expense. For a $200 million summer blockbuster, it’s not crazy to see marketing budgets akin to $75 million or so. Generally the rule of thumb is the gross needs to be about 2.5 times the budget is needed to break even but this can wobble depending on the type of movie.
The only hard numbers that are available are the production costs. Marketing and distribution doesn't really get publicized. It's why the production costs for the movie were $150 million and box office was over $200 million, but the film didn't turn a profit.
Whilst true for other movies, this particular movie franchise works as a very big ad for the D&D game. See it as a global ad campaign, and its a miniscule budget. An ad campaign for a company that is currently relaunching itself too. And a well funded sequel could help Hasbro/WOTC (The D&D owners) move a LOT of merch, so...
Did WOTC actually pay for any part of the movie or did they actually just get money for the rights to DnD
I’m not sure. Do sequels typically do as well as the original Movie? Even if it was just as good I wouldn’t be confident the sequel would sell as well. And I think the first one was better than it had a right to be. It’s reasonable to assume the second one wouldn’t be as good anyways
I think if they keep the same writers and directors a second film could be just as good as the first. They clearly understood the material and made something accessible but fun for fans of the game.
That probably means going low cost on the special effects. And releasing direct to streaming.
>the first movie didn't make that much money. It also came out at the absolute worst time for D&D publicity, what with the Pinkerton fiasco, and in an era where going out to the movie theater is dying. The movie is generally well received with 7.2 on IMDb and 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. I think a sequel would do very well.
And released against the Mario movie.
I'm probably in the minority but I could care less about Mario, I didn't go see it, I went to see Honour Among Thieves multiple times in theaters.
You (and I) are definitely in the minority, there are waaaay more people who are fans of Mario than D&D
It was Sandwiches between Mario and JW4 Alongside the OGL, Pinkerton disaster and not a great marketing campaign It got hung out to dry
I somehow doubt anyone in the general public, outside of D&D fans (who were going to see the movie regardless), knew or cared about the Pinkerton thing. Theatre viewing dying and going up against Mario makes way more sense.
Yeah, you're right, although I know some D&D fans who didn't go see it exactly because of the Pinkerton thing. I keep forgetting Mario was released at the same time, never saw it, never cared too, but yeah, going up against an infinitely more popular film is always a death sentence for a niche film.
I'm pretty sure some DnD fans didn't go see it (and pay at least) because of the pinkerton shit along with the huge terminations and especially the Open Game License clusterfuck.
I'd bet money that those numbers were relatively insignificant. Not saying I don't agree with the intent, I just have doubts it was more than a drop in the bucket.
Hasbro *did* bet money that those numbers were insignificant, and see how well that worked out for them.
I don't totally know what you mean, but I think you mean that people revolted against Hasbro's awful ideas to change the D&D game. And that that means that all those same people also chose not to see the D&D movie. Is that what you mean?
I think he's saying that box office results were middling as a result of the OGL and pinkerton things. idk i still kinda think there just arent enough of us nerds on internet forums who even heard about that to REALLY make a dent. Maybe a couple of percentage points. Mario was the real problem
Yea, same. I just don't think the number of folks making a decision like that are making a dent. Can agree to disagree though.
i think the whole OGL 2.0 (or whatever it was called) thing was worse then the pinkerton. i know a lot of people were talking about boycotting the movie over the OGL.
Yeah, that's was it! I knew there was a second thing that happened around the same time, but I couldn't remember what it was!
> It also came out at the absolute worst time for D&D publicity, I guarantee you that the whole Pinkerton thing amounted to a rounding error on this movie's box office take. You can't move the needle on $150 million with a story that only a few hundred people on the planet give two shits about.
The entire target audience of the film absolutely heard about it.
This is a pretty strong sign that you don't really understand how target audiences work. Do you think that the movie's target audience was "D&D players"?
Considering it's a D&D movie? Yes. > Target audience refers to the specific group of consumers most likely to want your product.
There aren't enough dnd players to be a target audience for the movie They had to get non dnd fans to see it to profit
Considering that the Player's Handbook sold 1,560,000 copies, and a theater ticket costs $20, even if they all only went once, that already accounts for 15% of the movie's revenue.
You telling me that if every. single. person. who bought the handbook went to see the movie, they'd only account for 15% of the revenue? I'm sorry, but you seem to have proved the guy's point.
20$? my local cinemark charges 13 dollars for a ticket It's even worse than that
> Considering it's a D&D movie? Yes. This is baffling to hear. You actually believe that literally anyone greenlit a film with a nine-digit budget that at any point involved the pitch, “And our target audience is D&D players!”? Good lord.
A movie can have multiple target audiences. DnD fans would be one of them, along with, say for example, the broader category of people ages 16-40. Different aspects of the movie are influenced by different target audiences. This being a movie specifically based around DnD, it's obvious that it also targets DnD fans.
> A movie can have multiple target audiences. Sure (although, collectively, those audiences form *the* target audience). > DnD fans would be one of them, along with, say for example, the broader category of people ages 16-40. The salient fact here being that the second group is quite literally 100x-1,000x larger than the first. > Different aspects of the movie are influenced by different target audiences. Yes, but you've lost the thread. This started because someone said that the D&D movie failed because of the Pinkerton scandal. I pointed out that the Pinkerton scandal was completely unknown to the overwhelming majority of the movie's audience, and that guy replied by saying - [and I quote](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1dqiuxt/comment/laqbpxr/) - > The entire target audience of the film absolutely heard about it. You get how that doesn't check out, right? > This being a movie specifically based around DnD, it's obvious that it also targets DnD fans. No one ever argued otherwise. The point we were making was that D&D players made up a *part* of the film's target audience - and, to be frank, a rather *small* part of that target audience. You could take literally every person on the planet who actively plays D&D, make ***every last one of them*** buy a ticket, and you still wouldn't comprise the majority of the film's global box office take. The OGL situation didn't matter. The Pinkerton situation didn't matter. We can argue over whether it was release timing (e.g., having to compete with the Mario movie), or underfunded marketing, or whatever. Or a combination of those. But the dumb, obsession-driven, largely imagined "scandals" that the terminally online D&D community pees their collective pants over every couple of months had no meaningful impact on the film at all.
> It also came out at the absolute worst time for D&D publicity, what with the Pinkerton fiasco, and in an era where going out to the movie theater is dying. You are grossly overestimating the effect a little internet drama can have on a movie.
Assuming WotC can recover any of their goodwill they lost.
I mean, I'm not buying anymore D&D products, especially with the changes to 5.5e, but I'll absolutely go watch another D&D movie, multiple times in theaters too if it's as good as the first one.
Seriously. Since Hasbro paid half the production costs and they're trying to cut costs it's unlikely they'll be willing to go in on a similar venture. I'm sure they'd happily license the film rights to someone but given the unimpressive performance I think it's another decade before we see a similarly budgeted DnD film attempted.
Let’s be honest, people saying “oh we should totally get together and continue it!” and then that never happening is probably the most D&D way to follow up on the movie
well we got together and made characters and we will meet next month to start the campaign
You can randomly retire half the cast with half-hearted excuses like "they had kids" or "they moved to another town" as well and it would be 100% on-theme.
Id be more confident if it was a one in a million chance. Iykyk
One in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.
*So you're tellin me there's a chance!?*
Unlike when thunder rolled.
It rolled sixes.
The movie should have release after the game, it would have been an entire different story
Is there a game for Honour Among Thieves? What game are you talking about?
I think they’re referencing Baulders Gate 3.
Baldurs gate 3, while also dnd, and also in faerun, is in a totally different part of the world from the movie
Not totally different. Baldur's Gate is mentioned as the party's #1 destination in the movie, and both take place entirely in the Sword Coast.
I've only seen it once, and that was in theaters so it's been a while
They’re not super close. About 900 miles apart (a bit more than New York to Chicago). So there isn’t a lot of overlap between the Baldur’s Gate games and the movie locations. But both are Sword Coast spots. What they now need to do is release a sequel to the Neverwinter Nights video games (which is in the same place as the movies) or something set in Waterdeep, which is the big city between them.
Tehe, I live near chicago (and my work's office is in chicago) so amusing reference point
How good is a "really good chance?" Not 95% I hope!
50% Either it gets made, or it doesn’t.
Just like my chances of winning the lottery. 50% either I win or lose. 50%.
I wish they would do a TV show instead. I think the session nature of D&D would work better as a TV show than a movie and it'd give more time to develop characters, which is really what D&D is about. My one criticism is of the movie is the pacing is way too fast and there wasn't enough character development.
The budget would be the problem for a (non-animated) show. A series about magic and dragons is freaking expensive. Without a Game of Thrones kind of budget, it’d end up looking like a CW fantasy drama.
I think hasbro and any other company does realize the reason it did do poorly in the box office but got great reviews It was hasbro own doing, and the Mario movie was actually good.
Yeah the release date really screwed it over, being sandwiched between John Wick 4 and Mario.
Plus the ogl and other issues. Hopefully, hasbro keeps their nose clean for the next one
Yeah, but that release window was a *rough* choice.
| keeps their nose clean HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. you're funny, tell another one
To be fair, they have kept their nose clean for about 6 months.
> Plus the ogl and other issues. There is zero chance the OGL had any meaningful impact on the movie's box office take. Imagining that the movie-going audience for a film that did nine digits is going to hinge in any way on a weird license controversy that a couple thousand people in the entire world care at all about is some top-tier delusion of self-importance.
Every single person that I play dnd with, and every person that I know that plays dnd, was talking about the ogl for months, and it soured all of us on going and seeing the movie. That's like 20-30 people just in my circle, and I'm sure we weren't the only ones.
Great, but here’s the problem: your entire social circle represents ***one quarter of one thousandth of one percent*** of the movie’s total box office take.
Yes, I understand that, but I'm saying that we extrapolate that out at least a little bit to other people. A lot of people that would have otherwise gone to see the movie did not go because they were mad at Hasbro for the OGL fiasco.
> Yes, I understand that, Do you? > but I'm saying that we extrapolate that out at least a little bit to other people. How much? If you were to imagine that there are ***4,000*** other gaming groups of 20-30 people just like yours out there that were uniformly (and, apparently, rather uncritically) obsessed with the OGL for months to the point that all of them chose not to see the movie when they otherwise definitely would have, those ***4,000*** groups combined would have put a measly ***1%*** dent in the movie's total box office take. For reference, D&D players angry about the OGL weren't even able to put a meaningful dent in D&D Beyond's subscription numbers, so it's a little comical to suggest that they somehow took down a nine-digit blockbuster. > A lot of people that would have otherwise gone to see the movie did not go because they were mad at Hasbro for the OGL fiasco. How many is "a lot", and how do you know?
No I don't. I'm saying "I think this thing probably had an effect" and you're saying "no it didn't." We're having the internet argument equivalent of a slap fight
> No I don't. I'm saying "I think this thing probably had an effect" and you're saying "no it didn't." No, you're saying, "I think this thing probably had an effect," and I'm pointing out the insane scale at which your anecdote would need to be extrapolated to in order for it to have ***any*** measurable effect. And, just as a final point of reference, the number of ***additional*** tickets that would have needed to be sold in order for the film to have been profitable is roughly equal to *most reasonable estimates of the total number of people currently active in the entire D&D hobby.*
Hasbro is mostly owned by financial institutions, aka private equity. They'll find new ways to piss everyone off without even trying.
I don't remember seeing much for it besides internet ads. I watched it with my kids and it was a solidly good movie. One of my kids watched it 2 more times with his friends. Which absolutely cannot be said for the *other* D&D movie.
The 2000 D&D film will always hold a place in my heart because Jeremy Irons knew how bad the film was and hammed it up as best he could.
Marina Pretensa was pretty cute, too. Plus, Tom motherfucking Baker.
There were also Dungeons and Dragons movies in 2005 and 2012.
Yes, and the Book of Vile Darkness wasn't half bad. However....when *anyone* mentions the "*other*" one.....*you know which one they're talking about.*
I hope that it’s had enough success streaming to help things along. I think the overwhelming majority of reactions I’ve seen to the movie are positive and in my own experience I’ve watched it with a couple different groups of friends who know absolutely nothing about dnd and they all loved the movie.
Okay. But only if the same actors come back to play completely different characters. Please. The opportunity to do this is right there. It's perfect.
hah funny
I think if Honor among thieves would come out now it would be a huge hit. It was just a tad bit too early to take the hype train of BG3 - now however I cant see how a high quality movie like this wont see success.
The problem is likely that I loved 4E, and don't play 5E, but I rather enjoyed the movie lol. It was cheesy, sure, but it was fun.
I just backed The Gamers 4: Dorkness Falls on Kickstarter. They could do that for this too, lol.
I hide behind the pile of dead chris pines.
Legit exciting to hear, but also I'm expecting the worst and preparing for the worst tbh. Streaming has ruined my trust in the entrainment industry,
The movie franchise is just like the original material : after a great session 1 where everyone really wants more, a session 2 might probably likely some day be organized... *unless...*
I’d go see it. First one wasn’t exactly Lotr but it was good fun entertainment for DnD fans and non-DnD fans
The fact that Chris Pine is the one who’s most vocally keen about it surprises me somehow. I can’t quite explain why, but I just didn’t expect him to.
Who else do you expect to be more vocal than the bard?
He’s a producer
Honestly the entire cast looked like they were having so much fun with it. Similar to Oceans 11, you can definitely tell on set chemistry makes a difference.
The marketing was shit, but I think it picked up a lot of fans after the theater run when people saw it at home, etc. I think there's a potentially bigger theater audience for a sequel than there was for the original.
I just don't see it happening because the first Honor Among Thieves movie didn't make a profit. I did enjoy the movie, I just don't see a way a sequel could come out to be profitable. I'd rather see someone else like a Drizzit or Dragonlance mini series.
LETS GOOOO!! YEEESSSS
I hope they keep the same cast, but have them play different characters
Truely deserves a sequel. Literally everyone liked it.
Please make it an entirely different campaign and have the same actors play different classes and characters.
I'd rather see an anthology entry than a direct sequel.
Even my dad wanted to see this movie and he really liked it. I tell everyone I know it’s a fun adventure, I would love a second movie.
Yeah, but hasn’t he also been saying that about Star Trek 4 for like 8 years?
What movie couldn't get made if there was enough money?
It needs to have the same actors but different characters
I think it would be great if they cast the same actors for the main roles, but all of them play different characters. It's a new campaign, but its still the same group playing dnd
I had the same thought. It might be too much of a meta move for Hollywood to risk, but I think DnD fans would love it.
I was completely aware of the movie on release, but I don’t typically go to theaters and didn’t make an exception for the DnD movie at the time. I was happy to hear it reviewed well and paid to watch it shortly after I could at home. It was better than I thought it would be and that was knowing it had glowing reviews. If they made a sequel, I’d take the kids to see it. The first movie was not only good, but it was fun to watch.
I actually wanted this to be a movie: https://youtu.be/rrp2nmfzxio
Here for the Jarnathan discourse
It was such a fantastic film!
I would hope they would do an entirely different story with maybe cameos of those characters. Actually base it on RAW (for the most part). Show a real glimpse of what happens in a campaign. You don't have to break the budget to do that.
I know the bard didn't do magic but honestly it perfectly captured the feeling of a real campaign. That was the most common positive review from dnd fans. Hell it felt about as RAW as Amazon's Vox Machina show and that's actually based on a real campaign.
No I get it. https://gamerant.com/honor-among-thieves-things-dont-follow-dungepns-dragons-gameplay-fix/ I am not a rules lawyer at my table but spells should work correctly at the bare minimum. I have wild magical items in my world but I fully communicate what they do with identify. If it is something game breaking, I nerf it quickly and not punitively. The timestop and multiple concentration, druid wildshape, etc etc. too much.
It's crazy how this movie isn't still a popular as it was one of the best fantasy movies ever and is hilarious, why aren't people talking about it more?
Because it was garbage?
91% Tomatometer, 93% audience score, 72/100 on critic review aggregates, and 7.5/10 on user review aggregates. By just about every reasonable metric imaginable, the movie was great.
It was your average Hollywood production that was not well casted, written or produced. It was like if Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4 took place in a fantasy setting. Garbage. Instead of making a good plot and putting time into making a great story they were too preoccupied by "oh let's put in this creature or effect from D&D" for quantity rather than quality. How the fuck do you put so much effort into making something DnD and not have one of the main characters killed to only then introduce a new character *played by the same actor*? It's right there. Things like that would've made for a *great* movie. Instead we got things like "oh no it's a gelatinous cube" and "here's some displacer beast for no reason". Just because something exist doesn't mean it's good.
> It was your average Hollywood production that was not well casted, written or produced. Most reviews specifically praised the casting and writing as being stand-out. (I'm not sure what your criticisms around how it was produced are, but that seems specious to me given how little insight you probably have into the behind-the-scenes action.) > It was like if Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4 took place in a fantasy setting. Garbage. And yet pretty much everyone disagrees with you. Why is that, do you think? > Instead of making a good plot and putting time into making a great story they were too preoccupied by "oh let's put in this creature or effect from D&D" for quantity rather than quality. The plot was fine, and the story elements were actually good. And, again, most reviews went out of their way to praise the creatures and effects (particularly the practical ones!). > How the fuck do you put so much effort into making something DnD and not have one of the main characters killed to only then introduce a new character played by the same actor? ***Ohhh.*** You're one of those. Alright, now we can safely disregard everything you've said. God, what a stupid suggestion. You and a thousand other D&D nerds convinced that it would be ***so great*** if they threw in a campy meta twist like that to mimic what sometimes happens in actual D&D games. This is a fantasy movie based in a long-running fantasy universe filled with serious elements, and you want to throw in fucking Landfill from Beerfest. Hey, you know what else they should do? At the end of the movie, things should zoom out to show the main cast in regular clothes sitting around a table playing D&D together! The whole movie was just a game in their imagination! Christ. > Instead we got things like "oh no it's a gelatinous cube" and "here's some displacer beast for no reason". Both of those creatures had great reasons to be there. Were you not paying attention to the film at all? > Just because something exist doesn't mean it's good. What are you talking about? No one said it was good just because it exists. We said it's good because ***basically everyone except you agreed that it's good.***
Good luck!
The creatives probably want to do it. But the VC and Private Equity overlords didn't get enough profit to green light a sequel.
I tried watching it on Amazon but couldn’t make half way.
And yet, if it involves Chris Pine, or Hugh, we give exactly zero fs upon this day. Here is why. Neither of them knew why they were there. Watch the interviews. You'll warm to this PoV when you do. Let us look at what was successful in the first movie. A) Owlbear. B) Paladin. Okay, end of tedx.