Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves | March 31, 2023 | Paramount | Amazon Prime advance screenings March 19 @ 2 PM

[kayumanggi]

This actually held better overseas than domestic.

[kayumanggi]

12 hours ago, TigerPaw said:

Haven't seen international numbers for the weekend..

Might have been killed by Mario overseas..

 

[Stas]

In ex-USSR and partially Eastern Europe countries, the trailer was well received. But only in geeks circles, that follow all pop culture news and watch all the trailers. The trailer reminded pre-LOTR fantasy - Ladyhawke, The Princess bride, A Knight's Tale. Counter-proposal to superhero genre, which frankly amounted a quite deal of tiredness. So yes, without an existing fan base it is very difficult to launch a franchise.

 

The main problem is the budget. Epic fantasy requires epic budget. For example, first John Wick movie (7.4 on IMDB) started with $86M at WW box-office and only with third film in series it had reached 300+ million globally. If D&D HAT (7,6 on IMDb) had a budget around $50M, the sequel would have already been greenlit. $100M - most likely. But launching with a blockbuster budget without huge dedicated fanbase behind (like Super Mario movie) is extremely risky right now.

 

I don't even know how to fix the situation. Perhaps a partnership with Apple or Amazon - they are now actively looking for feature movies to enter theatrical exhibition market. But these, of course, leads to another risks like producing participants disagreements.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Stas

[SpiderByte]

Better holds OS are nice but with a weak start it's still not enough. Aside from streaming and VOD maybe it has an outside shot at an effects nomination? Maybe something for the animatronics?

[Brainbug]

Having seen it now, im even sadder that this is underperforming.

[JohnnyGossamer]

2 hours ago, Brainbug said:

Having seen it now, im even sadder that this is underperforming.

Yeah... It's super fun. Nice throwback to Pirates era blockbusters with some of that Guardians Vol. 1 charm laced throughout. It'll be too late for it but I bet it will build up a nice audience over time once it's available to stream.

[upprdeck]

Way undervalued movie.. This is why you go see things in theaters..  Took my college aged kid to see it and she cant wait to get her friends to go see it again and hopes it gets a sequel. 

 

Fun movie and hopefully picks up a little word of mouth and gets to close to 200 million overall. 

[SpiderByte]

It's not quite Dredd level disconnect but yeah clearly the marketing just did not work. Maybe if they had emphasized the DND part of the title less?

[TwoMisfits]

Went ahead and decided to help late legs and see both March bombs:).  I have tickets for 6 for next Tuesday, since, well, discount tickets are about what I wanted to pay, knowing this will be out of theaters by GOTG3 with its BO performance so far...

 

 

[Daxtreme]

Well at least this movie should be quite popular on streaming, since there aren't many obstacles preventing people from watching it.

 

I play D&D with friends and we've been playing for years, I told one of them that this movie was actually great, the reviews are great, it's a great D&D movie... and yet he's not going to watch it until it comes out on streaming.

 

I mean, what does it take for you to watch a movie about a franchise you love? It literally has got everything. Reviews, word of mouth... clearly there's something here, not sure what exactly, that makes even massive fans of the franchise just... not go see it 

 

edit: 94% RT audience score... what will it take lmao

Edited April 11, 2023 by Daxtreme

[upprdeck]

I think the issue now is so many are happy to watch it staying home on movies that 10-20 yrs ago they would have gone to see and hoped they were made to watch..    Waiting for streaming isnt going to keep movies being made at a high scale..  the big streamers can only make so many. 

[screambaby]

2 minutes ago, upprdeck said:

I think the issue now is so many are happy to watch it staying home on movies that 10-20 yrs ago they would have gone to see and hoped they were made to watch..    Waiting for streaming isnt going to keep movies being made at a high scale..  the big streamers can only make so many. 

Is this gonna be the new excuse for every movie that flops or inderperforms?

[upprdeck]

I guess the question is did it under perform?   not one person I know knew this was coming out.  and one reason is because so few people go to movies, and so few movies advertise any more.

 

I went to 5-6 movies this yr never saw a trailer for this and its never been in a TV ad I saw.  No one reads papers so no ads there any more..

 

 the tracking was decent but that just means it underperformed to tracking not that it underperformed as a movie..   And tracking probably has the same issues these days as political polling does. 

 

I go looking at schedules then go look to find what the movies i see coming are about,  Does the casual fan do this ?

 

our local mall is dead so no people are wondering around seeing the flyers up either.

 

a movie that make 150-200+ million is only a flop to budget not to how well it was perceived.  the way this was budgeted it wont really lose money it just wont be a big money maker. 

Edited April 11, 2023 by upprdeck

[screambaby]

1 minute ago, upprdeck said:

I guess the question is did it under perform?   not one person I know knew this was coming out.  and one reason is because so few people go to movies, and so few movies advertise any more.

 

I went to 5-6 movies this yr never saw a trailer for this and its never been in a TV ad I saw.  No one reads papers so no ads there any more..

 

 the tracking was decent but that just means it underperformed to tracking not that it underperformed as a movie..   And tracking probably has the same issues these days as political polling does. 

 

I go looking at schedules then go look to find what the movies i see coming are about,  Does the casual fan do this ?

 

our local mall is dead so no people are wondering around seeing the flyers up either.

If u spend a 150 million budget on a movie and it's gonna struggle to hit a 100 domestic its worse then underperformed. And streaming won't make up for it

[JohnnyGossamer]

4 minutes ago, upprdeck said:

I guess the question is did it under perform?   not one person I know knew this was coming out.  and one reason is because so few people go to movies, and so few movies advertise any more.

 

I went to 5-6 movies this yr never saw a trailer for this and its never been in a TV ad I saw.  No one reads papers so no ads there any more..

 

 the tracking was decent but that just means it underperformed to tracking not that it underperformed as a movie..   And tracking probably has the same issues these days as political polling does. 

 

I go looking at schedules then go look to find what the movies i see coming are about,  Does the casual fan do this ?

 

our local mall is dead so no people are wondering around seeing the flyers up either.

While I'm not sure the actual advertising they chose to run with was super helpful, this was pretty heavily advertised. Not just trailers before movies. Just didn't connect. The good news is that those who did see it seem overwhelmingly to have a blast with it. A true crowd pleaser.

[upprdeck]

If i make the best movie of all time and no one knows about it how much money will it make?   if they spent all this money on marketing where did it go? the movie only cost 75 million  the movie studio. 

[screambaby]

1 minute ago, upprdeck said:

If i make the best movie of all time and no one knows about it how much money will it make?   if they spent all this money on marketing where did it go? the movie only cost 75 million  the movie studio. 

Again.if they didn't market it then its still a bomb. How is scream 6 only had a 33 million dollar budget but is gonna outgross d and d and shaazam in the u.s? Marketing...so maybe bump scream 6 full budget to 45 million with marketing and it Still leaves these two big budget flops in the dust..

[upprdeck]

good question.. But scream was a franchise in a market that tends to feed on itself too.   Its like westerns have X amount of audience and they tend to find it and seldom does it break out more than that,   What kind of audience does this have?  the horror movies  have the same thing.  It doesnt even matter how good they are for much of what they make. 

 

People complain about what studios dont take more chances and here is a clear reason why.. Only a subset of movie goers will go to things outside  their norm.

 

I go to most everything if it looks like fun.  many wont do that. 

[Morieris]

19 minutes ago, upprdeck said:

I guess the question is did it under perform?   not one person I know knew this was coming out.  and one reason is because so few people go to movies, and so few movies advertise any more.

 

While I don't remember seeing a trailer for it in the theater (Where I saw BP:WF, Avatar, PiB), they had a lot of advertising directed at kids, costumes, beginners sets, even read along books.

 

Which makes not having a trailer before PiB even more egregious.

[screambaby]

Just now, upprdeck said:

good question.. But scream was a franchise in a market that tends to feed on itself too.   Its like westerns have X amount of audience and they tend to find it and seldom does it break out more than that,   What kind of audience does this have?  the horror movies  have the same thing.  It doesnt even matter how good they are for much of what they make. 

 

People complain about what studios dont take more chances and here is a clear reason why.. Only a subset of movie goers will go to things outside  their norm.

 

I go to most everything if it looks like fun.  many wont do that. 

Once upon a time though the original scream was expected to be a flop.. Everything has to have a beginning...if you don't have a good beginning you won't have any....the weinstein perv Brothers at least knew how to market the original and get a good release date...(until they got to scream 4)...if you don't know how to market or open any movie It's probs ly gonna flop