this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Does D&D make them a lot of money, though? I know the movie did well and licensing fees gained from BG3 must be pretty good, but those aren't really the norm exactly. WoTC makes good money as a whole but I honestly figured that was mostly MTG, cardboard and ink is dirt cheap compared to how much a booster pack costs lmao
Actually I believe the movie did pretty badly. It was reviewed fairly well by critics and fans who actually went to go see it, but unfortunately it was squeezed between a couple of other popular IP's at the time (I think it was John Wick and the Mario movie). But hopefully it helped them with streaming or something.
I think I ended up watching it on Paramount+ in the hopes that it'll encourage them to make more in the future. Plus it was wholesome enough I thought it might be able to go into my comfort movie rotation with Princess Bride and Stardust. (Although now that I think about it, I should just buy a physical copy.)
That, plus coming immediately after the whole licencing debacle. Many have speculated that part of the reason they were so quick (in the end) to capitulate and throw out the Creative Commons licence as haphazardly as they did is that they wanted to get fans back onside so they wouldn't boycott or review bomb the movie.
I would have seen it by now if Hasbro had not made me viscerally hate the idea of supporting them in any way.
That's fair. I was going to not see it but they reversed so hard on the OGL thing I decided to reward them with my $15 lol.
Yeah, I'd have ended my boycott of Hasbro after they backed down had they not immediately sent armed, hired mercinaries to threaten, harass, and bully an MTG player over an order mixup that was the seller's fault. That happened so soon after they backed down on the whole OGL 1.1 thing. I genuinely thought Hasbro learned a lesson with the OGL backlash, but this Pinkerton thing made it clear they hadn't.
The most valuable thing about D&D is the brand. So if there's one thing they definitely wouldn't sell, it would be the IP.
Hollywood accounting is weird as fuck, but the general ballpark is that a movie needs to make double its budget at the box office to break even.
On a budget of $150 million, D&D made $93.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $114.9 million in the rest of the world, for a worldwide total of $208.2 million.
Now, because of the complicated relationship between WotC/Hasbro and Paramount, some have speculated these numbers may not be as dire as they would be in an original IP. And of course the home viewing market is a huge part of the equation these days. So it's entirely possible the film did break even or even make a small profit. But sadly, it was not a commercial success.
Which is a shame, because it was so good. As a fantasy movie fan. As a D&D fan. And even as a Forgotten Realms fan.