Re: D&D Movie Sequel Canned

On 11/30/2024 6:07 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

 So, it's being reported that Hasbro is backing out of making a sequel
to the 2023 D&D movie, "Honor Amongst Thieves".*
  [meme]Oh no! Anyway...[/meme]
 It's really no surprise, though. Not only was the movie something of a
financial flop, but the adventures of Brad the bard and his friends**
also didn't capture any of the public's imagination. It was an utterly
forgettable movie that depended almost entirely on people's nostalgia
for D&D... and --as much as I love the game-- D&D itself isn't all
that exciting.
 It's the story and characters (and the interactions amongst the
players) that make the game so memorable. It's Drizzt Du'orden, or
memories of that time Billy rolled a 1 when trying to pickpocket the
lich. It's NOT the fact that the game has a beholder in it or that
people are inexplicably divided into classes of thief, mage and
warrior. And yet, it's the _system_ that the movie relied upon as its
primary hook. It's no wonder it failed.
 In fairness, Hasbro is backing away from film projects in general;
they also canned the Transformer One movies and sold off their film
and TV business. Canny C-levels aren't expecting a rosy future for
world economies for the next few years*** and big expensive movies
made in Hollywood aren't likely to see good returns. But I think even
had economic prospects looked better, the D&D movie almost certainly
would have gotten the axe. Even just seen as a marketing vehicle to
get the D&D brand back into the public consciousness, it wasn't that
effective. As a movie, it was a $200 million failure.

It's a bit of an issue because it managed to get an audience on streaming later on. That should be enough to allow for some extension of the franchise, especially as all those numbers about money earned from films are mostly made up anyway.
But the issue is mostly that Hasbro has issues. not just issues with their media properties, but ISSUES. They don't have a clue how to do stuff right now. They know they produce toys and they know they want money, but the current leadership of Hasbro doesn't know how to connect these two with products that people actually want buy.
Dungeons and Dragons is an extreme outlier for profitability for them, and that's mostly because actual FANS were the ones that moved it into the public consciousness. And the only way they thought about how to make money from that was by forcing the creators that did that into paying for the privilege, as if it was really DnD that was at the core of Critical Role's success, and not the skills of it's GM/players.
(I am not a fan of CR, but I can't deny that they captured their audience)
But even worse is the fact that they managed to squander a complete media empire. Previously they had success with My Little Pony, and it was absolutely massive. And it was running on their own channel and people were into it. But somehow they managed to completely fuck up that part as well to the point that noone even cares about it anymore.