I do think the OGL definitely affected the reception to some degree. The movie already fell under the game-to-movie category which does not have a child friendly reputation. How many non-player parents would bring their kids to a rather niche game movie that many still see as complicated, tedious and nerdy? Thus they needed the full support of D&D community, which was quite divided at the time due to the OGL.
I think it didn't make much of a difference. DnD is niche and the stigma still exists that DnD is for nerds, it's not cool outside our bubble to play this game.
I have a feeling we are just seeing the death of movies in theaters. I could have enjoyed that movie just as much on my own large screen TV at home. Times are changing.
Very good point about found family - the gulf between the D&D movie and Stranger Things really demonstrates that Hasbro/ Wotc execs just don’t understand what TTRPGs are for. They miss the point, and probably always will.
I think the movie has fine wide appeal, it was a very standard summer blockbuster type movie. Theaters have no real draw anymore and people don't have money to justify the rising cost of them. All movies are doing worse and worse in box office, then go on to do fine streaming. A Jumanji-esque version of DnD could have worked, but would have risked being an even more generic bore I dunno. I think this movie was about as good as it could have gotten for a corporate made DnD movie.
Not arguing that it's not a good DnD movie. It's great! To the general public it was probably seen as a generic action fantasy film because most people don't know much about the brand. Maybe they should have tried a TV series first? Work on getting something critically acclaimed and then swing for the fences with a big blockbuster movie?
I don’t think even the now much grown ttrpg community is big enough to generate 300 million in box office. Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe the OGL thing really shot them in the foot. I know my 74 year old dad loved it. He knows Jack shit about D&D and is generally not an imaginative fiction fan. He enjoyed the comedy and the cast and the movie. I just don’t think enough people cared enough to spend movie theater prices on a movie they didn’t know much about. I’m hoping they green light a sequel because it does great on blu ray and streaming platforms…
I enjoyed Dungeon & Dragons Honor Among Thieves. Certainly I place it in the top 20% of films watched (I've watched 1,000+ films in my life). According to Wikipedia: Budget - $150 million; Box office - $208.2 million. That's not a "dumpster fire" or "box office flop" by financial measurements.
We enjoyed it too. It's a super fun movie! Sadly, it was a box office failure for Hasbro. The Hollywood standard is usually making DOUBLE your film's budget just to break even (this is to cover marketing costs and other expenses not in the film's actual budget). So the D&D movie would have needed to gross around $300 million BEFORE it started making money. Is it the worst flop ever? No. Is it a great movie? Yeah it's pretty great. Does this box office performance warrant Hasbro making more D&D films? Not anytime soon. They even sold the production company that made Honor Among Thieves. Probably to help mitigate losses from the film's box office performance.
funny thing is, the first time i knew of dnd was through the 90s cartoon? i dont remember the decade of that since i watched the re-run, anyways, then one of my high school class mates wanted really hard to play it, i thought, "oh a board game based on the cartoon", now i know its the reverse, but didnt at the time, when i brought up this to that classmate he was like "who is this guy pretending to be nerdy, but using all the wrong terms", you see, that cartoon translated dungeon master, to mage master, since that sounded better in my language, and for name dnd itself, it was translated to "cave of the dragon", since again it sounded better in my language, as it turns out, i was the nerdiest of the intire table, wanting to play it even when all the other people lost all motivation, so yeah, also, i'm now the forever dm of my table, and i dont even care, since i absolutely love being the "master of mages" hahah =D
It was surprisingly fun. And yes they did emasculate the male characters a bit (exaggeration) BUT you notice it was the 2 male leads that had actual character arcs? The women were standard Perfect Mary Sue characters and so never changed, even the daughter.
Even the wizard was a less interesting villain than Hugh Grant because she was just powerful and serious, nothing else. Holga was my favourite female character in the film and I'm pretty sure it's not a coincidence that she's the only one that was even slightly flawed.
I'm reminded of John Carter. I've been a Barsoom fab since I was a teenager (long, long ago) and I tried to hype it up. But everything was stacked against that movie (intentionally - new boss hated old boss's pet project). Sort of the sane, but just greed and ego this time.
The box office only matters a little. Streaming and digital sales are not revealed by box office numbers. According to the Motion Picture Industry annual report of March 14, 2023 box office is at most 1/3 of the digital sales. In the motion picture industry digital sales are going up and box office is going down.
Sure digital sales will only continue to rise, but usually when they're really great numbers the production company will issue a statement. Something to appease shareholders. That didn't happen here. If it was truly a success someone from WotC, Hasbro, Paramount would have commented. Perhaps at the next quarterly stock holders meeting something will be said?
Warcraft was abit boring considering they started at the first war and threw too much lore to nonfans but it was distinct. I watched Honor Amongus and beside the Red Wizard and the hanging city. I think it.. was way too generic? I think the plot structure was nice but it kinda reminded me of the Chronlies of Riddick movie with how like meh it was. Doe I like how the spells and items worked as they should. The Druid shapeshifting escape plan was dope and getting the portal into the wagon was perfect but.. I kinda wish they would of had the Bard show his worth. Like imagine if he was doing the mockery cantrips to muck her up and bam she get cuffed and owlbeared.
This wasn’t a good movie. Characters were terrible, storyline was even worse and had a very anticlimactic ending. I think many give it a pass because “D&D” but D&D itself isn’t what it use to be.
Went two times to cinema, first with wife and kids, week later with one of the groups I play with. They all know what DnD is, since we all played it (and I mean all, even younger son of 5). All were satisfied with the movie. But I took all of them, none was planing to going before that. So that tells a lot about lack of hype. That being said, conclusion is that this movie needed a truly invested fan of DnD to take entire group of people. And WotC scandals and promise of "emasculation" took a seeerious bite out of that pool of people. I have to admit that I was EXTREMELY reluctant to go for the first time, and went to cinema EXPECTING a shitshow and a flop. Only reason I went with the other group was because the movie was good. Main problem I had with the movie? Overexplanation of everything. Boy, for every idea, thought and conclusion they HAD to have someone speak it out loud... PS. That beardo-weirdo hits me deep, liches! Nice one!
Personally, I think that if they changed the title to “Honor among Thieves: a D&D movie” (in much smaller print), the general populace would have been more willing to latch onto it. Also, D&D: Jumanji would be kinda awesome.
