Summary
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’dismal box office performance looks even more unfortunate when compared to the $439 million action fantasy film currently taking Netflix by storm. When it came time to prove itself in theaters early last year,Dungeons & Dragonssurprisingly fell flat despite being cut out for success. In addition toDungeons & Dragons’big-name cast, including lead star Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, and Hugh Grant, the movie had a whopping $150 million budget to capitalize on and a fantasy adventure premise suited for the big screen.
Dungeons & Dragonsadapted its storyfrom the iconic tabletop role-playing fantasy game, depicting a thief named Edgin Darvis (Pine) and a ragtag group of adventurers as they execute a heist to retrieve a valuable relic. The cleverly humorous, action-packed adaptation impressed not just D&D IP fans but also critics, as evidenced by the movie’s Certified Fresh score of 91% onRotten Tomatoes. In the face of it all,Dungeons & Dragonsstill frustratingly flopped, earning about$207 million worldwide, well under what it would need to recover its expenses and be considered a success.
The general rule of thumb is that a movie needs to gross 2.5 times its budget to be deemed successful.Dungeons & Dragonsmade 1.4 times its budget.
Warcraft
Cast
Warcraft is a fantasy film depicting the conflict between the human realm of Azeroth and invading orc warriors fleeing their dying world. As a mystical portal connects the two worlds, two heroes from opposing sides emerge, facing choices that will determine the fate of their people and homeland.
Dungeons & Dragons’performance is doubly vexing when considering the ongoing success of the kindred movieWarcraft.Warcraft’spremise is also based on a popular fantasy RPG - Blizzard Entertainment’s online gameWorld of Warcraft -and the movie shared an almost equivalent production budget toDungeons & Dragonsat $160 million. Theoretically,Dungeons & Dragonsshould have been able to produce similar, or, at the very least, closer earnings toWarcraft’s$439 millionworldwide gross, especially on the account that it was a much better movie in the eyes of critics and audiences.
$150,000,000
$207,854,947
91%
93%
$160,000,000
$438,899,824
29%
76%
A $439 million haul may makeWarcrafttwo times bigger thanDungeons & Dragons, and the former film’s current popularity on Netflix (#3 ofNetflix’s top 10 movies in the U.S. today) may justify its incredible box office haul - butDungeons & Dragonswelcomed a much better reception. For critics, in particular,Dungeons & Dragonscame across as well-made, skillfully blending humor and action with great world-building that anyone, including those unfamiliar withD&D, would find delightful. Critics couldn’t say the same ofWarcraft.Audiences were more receptive to it, butstill,Warcraftlagged in overall approval behindDungeons & Dragons.
Why Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Underperformed At The Box Office
The Odds Were Stacked Against Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
The various reasons that would explainwhyDungeons & Dragonsunderperformedat the box office reveal that the odds weren’t in its favor. UnlikeWarcraft,Dungeons & Dragonswas released in a considerably more grueling period in cinema, as theatergoer trends and the forecast of any movie’s box office performance have become unpredictable. Competition from the releases of highly anticipated films such asSuper Mario Bros.andJohn Wick: Chapter Four,coupled with the fact that it had to rely more on word of mouth, meant thatDungeons & Dragonswas facing greater challenges in the theatrical marketplace of 2023.
Dungeon & Dragonswould have had to pull out all the stops to entice the number of viewers it neededoutside of fans of its comparatively smaller IP.D&Ddoes have an impressive following, but without effective marketing strategies, the movie was a hard sell for IP newcomers inundated with the promise of almost immediately recognizable franchises that harbored great promotional backing and even better audience reviews. That said, as hard as it was forDungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thievesto put its foot in the door, its more favorable aspects persist among the wreckage of its box office.
Will Honor Among Thieves 2 Happen? Dungeons & Dragon’s Future Explained
The Prospect Of A Dungeons & Dragons Sequel Seems Downright Fantastical
The commercial failure of the movie makes thepossibleDungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves 2seem much less likely. It could very well join the ranks of stalled Chris Pine sequels that also includes the fourthStar Trekmovie following the trilogy of reboot movies starring the actor as iconic sci-fi character Captain James T. Kirk. However, in a 2023Varietyprofile,Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins hinted that theD&Dsequel could still move forwardif it was given a much smaller budget that would make it much less of a financial risk.
A planned Dungeons & Dragons television spinoff that was ordered straight to series in early 2023 was later scrapped by Paramount+…
A cheaper sequel could succeed, considering the fact that - as far as the raw numbers go -Honor Among Thieveswas the 29th highest-grossing movie of 2023worldwide. It surpassed many other releases, including other major movies that have earned sequels or follow-ups such asTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,Insidious: The Red Door,Evil Dead Rise, andSaw X. However, a plannedDungeons & Dragonstelevision spinoff that was ordered straight to series in early 2023 was later scrapped by Paramount+, which could indicate that the company as a whole is abandoning the property for the time being.
Warcraft’s Box Office Was Not Enough To Get A Sequel Greenlight Either
Warcraft 2 Has Failed To Materialize After Eight Years
The prospect ofHonor Among Thieves 2ever getting made looks even grimmer in the face of the fact that thepossibleWarcraft 2was never made either. This was the case despite the movie’s strong box office returns against its budget and an ensemble cast that included stars who were less A-list than those ofDungeons & Dragons, meaning their salaries might be considerably lower. While a new movie based on the property was announced in 2020, it wasn’t clear if it was in the same continuity andno major progress has been made in the ensuing four years.
The cast of Warcraft includes Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, and Daniel Wu.
Ultimately, fantasy movies likeWarcraftandDungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieveshave major special effects requirements that lead to inflated price tags, which could be what is inhibiting both sequels. While movie sequels can earn more than their predecessors,diminishing returns frequently require budgets to get tighter and tighter to make a return on investment. However, there is a limit to how tightthe budget of a movie taking place in a fantastical realm can ever get, raising the bar for how much money a fantasy property needs to make in order to be considered successful.
