Category: Honor Among Thieves

  • There’s still a chance Honor Among Thieves 2 happens

    There’s still a chance Honor Among Thieves 2 happens

    Shortly after the critical success and box office miss of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Paramount ordered a sequel script. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein wrote it. Paramount, pre-Skydance acquisition, rejected it.

    That movie project is not dead, according to Daley-Goldstein who wrote, directed and produced Honor Among Thieves. Hasbro and their core producers are welcoming the duo to shop the script.

    Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein say rights holder Hasbro remains determined to find a new studio home for “Dungeons & Dragons 2.”

    …

    “Yeah, absolutely,” Goldstein told DeAngelo when asked whether anyone was still trying to make the economics work. “I think Hasbro is a big believer in it, and if they can figure out a studio partner to make it work, they’ll want to proceed. As are our producers.”

    Now, there are a lot of reasons why Hasbro would be interested in the movie being made.

    1. They’d share the cost, though both Paramount and Hasbro took impingements.
    2. No other project generated more interest in D&D.
    3. Stranger Things is no longer a cultural phenomena. The expansion series are not generating the interest the original five season series did.
    4. The Forgotten Realms project run by Shawn Levy and written by Drew Crello after Rawson Marshall Thuber’s original writing is dead.
    5. The D&D Documentary run by Joe Manganiello and Kyle Newman is probably dead as it missed the 50th year anniversary it was announced for, by a lot, while remaining in pre-production.
    6. Craig Mazin’s BG3 sequel on HBO won’t start in earnest until after he’s done with Last of Us.
    7. John August’s Strahd-Ravenloft origin story for Netflix is announced, but barely started.

    It’s going to be a while before D&D for TV or movies are back, and from the above you may notice that lots of projects don’t make it from publicly acknowledged to publicly available — the only one not on the list in the post-covid environment is a single episode of Secret Level.

    • Additionally Hasbro-Wizards of the Coast had some involvement in Onward!, Stranger Things and are adjacent to sometime competitor/sometime cohort Critical Roles’ two animated series, kinda.

    Fantasy TV and movies are in a bit of a downturn lately. The Game of Thrones follow-ups aren’t as popular as that powerhouse. Cancellations despite strong critical reception are common. Cancellations of shows that were putting up numbers are common. Willow gone. Shadow & Bone gone. Six of Crows, announced and never made. Wheel of Time gone, but coming back animated. Rings of Power’s slow release schedule probably meant you forgot about it.

    When Paramount rejected the D&D:2 script they were scaling way back in order to get bought, eventually by Skydance. They are pulling out of that slow two years.

    Maybe the new Skydance-Paramount merger could mean they get back involved. David Ellison has a history of working with Hasbro, with Paramount before he owned them, and it is the press tour for his movie with Daley-Goldstein where the news of D&D:2 remaining in market became public.

    There’s additional pressure on Paramount and probably Warner Bros to get movies into the pipeline — their merger includes promises of 30+ movies total from the two legacy studios. To avoid lengthy legal battles one or both may start announcing a slate of projects soon, especially ones that are made in the U.S.

    Hasbro will want a film because they want to maintain interest in D&D the Brand — placements in big box stores, theaters, the top of Amazon — that can’t happen from core D&D. Plus, they never really released a book to go along with Honor Among Thieves, instead they merely credited Daley with co-writing one chapter in one book.

    The new “franchise” format should support co-releases much better. The seasons system could capture a Season of Thieves easily.

    Brandon Sanderson’s TV project, and the massive RPGs going along with it, are building up.

    Maybe competition, the legal issues around the merger of mergers, and the knowledge that Honor Among Thieves held streaming legs for two full years is going to push D&D:2 from written to pre-production.

    Fediverse Reactions
  • Honor Among Thieves coming to Netflix USA

    Honor Among Thieves coming to Netflix USA

    Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves didn’t make its expected money in the box office. It barely topped $200 million with Hasbro taking an impairment charge of $25 million (that’s not necessarily a loss, but a lack of hitting the expected revenue) in Q2 2023. That was the release quarter of the film.

    But, it’s highly rated, exploded the interest in D&D and has been a streaming stalwart on Paramount+ and Netflix in international markets. In fact, last year it was top 15 for Paramount’s now-profitable streaming service and top 25 for Netflix, while not being available in the United States — until later this month.

    D&D: Honor Among Thieves will be available in the USA on Netflix starting Feb. 26.

    If, like me, you want another film or even a series, Honor Among Thieves doing well on Netflix is vital. The D&D documentary and various series projects are stuck — the doc was originally announced for a 50th anniversary release while the only pre-production series was dumped by Paramount. The supposed Baldur’s Gate 3 x Netflix project hasn’t gone from rumor to announcement yet.

    There’s a chance that Netflix wants to see if Honor Among Thieves does well in the US as a kind of trial balloon to see if they should pick up the pre-production Rawson Marshall Thurber D&D series that’s currently being shopped.

    Netflix has a Magic: The Gathering series coming, which is different from the just announced Legendary MtG movie and series. Hasbro’s current movie/series rights philosophy is to not bond with a single production company nor a single a platform, but to spread their various properties to the highest bidder — they are also reducing their own investments, withdrawing from the costs of production nearly totally.

    There is one concern to have about Honor Among Thieves being able to succeed on Netflix. Currently the most similar series and movies aren’t good.

    That should change rapidly once the algorithm starts seeing who is watching the movie. And yes, these suggestions are individual, but as someone who has rewatched several D&D adjacent projects on Netflix I would expect to see Shadow & Bone, Merlin, BBC’s Robin Hood and several other witchy series. Instead, there’s these selections.

    Top photo is from the Thieves Gallery, the NPC stat blocks for the main characters in the film, which all include damage boosts similar to the 2025 Monster Manual.

    Fediverse Reactions
  • My Best Writing of 2023

    My Best Writing of 2023

    Every year I publish a look back at my favorite writing, podcast and video appearances for the year. This helps me remember what I’ve done, re-up things to people who discovered me late in the year and when attempting to freelance it gives me a handy spot to find work to share with editors and other hiring managers.

    Dungeons & Dragons

    The most popular story in the history of Full Moon Storytelling is no longer about sports. My essay on how to use third places to amplify verisimilitude surpassed the sports and cultures essay and then lapped it, twice in just a year. This helped boost Full Moon Storytelling to have 74% more views than last year. Alos, in 2023 FMS had more total views and visitors than the total of either from its founding in 2014 to 2022. Federating via WordPress helped contribute to that growth as well.

    D&D: Honor Among Thieves had an interesting release to judge as a success or not. Opening week was fine, but not great. The falloff was significant, and yet there are many reasons to think that there will be a sequel. It was a massive success when it came to marketing D&D and is one of the most streamed movies of 2023. My fascination with the mainstreaming of the hobby by Hollywood is one of my favorite writings.

    I’m probably not going to do a full post on Honor Among Thieves overall streaming success. Here’s the end of year data from Flixpatrol;

    • Ended the year as the 8th most popular movie to purchase on Google, Rakuten and Amazon.
    • It spent 246 days in Google’s top 10 most purchased movies & shows again globally. That’s basically every day it was available.
    • On Paramount+, its primary streaming platform, it spent 228 days in the top 10 globally good for 9th overall. It spent the last weekend of 2023 in 6th worldwide and 4th in the USA on P+
    • On iTunes it finished 12th, with 224 days in the top 10.
    • In most Asia it was streamed on HBO Max. It spent 83 days in the top 10 globally for HBO movies, despite only being available in limited markets.
    • In much of Latin America it was on Star+. It finished 11th among movies on that platform, spending 46 days in the top 10.

    Backgrounds continue to be my specialty. The most popular released this year was the Weaver, working its way into the top 5 all time.

    You can find five of my backgrounds, converted to A5e, in Worlds to Go! The Elysians, my first ever Kickstarter. There’s also Sports in D&D rules in that book.

    During a vacation I saw roads with funky names and decided they can inspire D&D and other fantasy settings. You too can find inspiration in normal places.

    Why do I keep a d20 in my pocket? Because it gives me a sense of belonging.

    I sponsored two soccer teams. Our Flag Means Offside FC and What We Do On The Sidelines FC had opposite records on the field, but they’re both #1 in my heart. I’m already sponsored a spring 2024 team. I can’t wait to see the new jersey.

    Sounders and other soccer

    Back in 2008 I founded Sounder at Heart. In 2019 I left to work for Tacoma Defiance and Reign FC, rejoining SaH in late 2020. This year the current Managing Editor, Jeremiah Oshan took the site independent. As part of that effort I now write the twice-weekly newsletter now called the Ship’s Log.

    The most popular of those was a Reign themed newsletter on network effects and the sum of a team being greater than the individual pieces.

    I also help maintain the Depth Chart and cover Defiance.

    Risk Intelligence

    For Factal I also help with a newsletter — Benchmarker. Similar to the SaH newsletter, the open rates are climbing, click-through rates are climbing and distribution is growing. Mostly, my job there is to help people within Global Security, Business Continuity, Resilience and Crisis find our free resources (and then our paid service). The work we do there helps keep people alive and business operating. You can read more about that in our annual recap.

    People outside of security and continuity fields will enjoy things I don’t do — the Factal Forecast and The Debrief. The Forecast is our editors’ look at the planned news of the next week. The Debrief dives deep into an issue that isn’t on the front page of US media, but needs attention.

  • Baldur’s Gate 3 is the next D&D TV show in development, maybe

    Giant Freaking Robot says that Netflix is in talks to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to the screen. They don’t know if it would be a movie or a series yet, but the series makes more sense considering the amount of content in the video game.

    There’s already one Dungeons & Dragons show that’s been picked up by Paramount+. The Marshall Rawson Thurber project is in pre-production. Thurber is probably best known for Netflix’s Red Notice.

    Derek Kolstad, known for John Wick 1-3, is also writing and showrunning a different “untitled D&D” series. Kolstad’s project, but that may still be just a pitch, rather than a purchased series. It was supposedly connected to Drizzt Do’Urden.

    There’s also a long simmering rumor that once Joe Manganiello gets done with he and his brother’s D&D documentary he’ll resume pitching his long-sought Dragonlance series. Manganiello is helping push the previous efforts at the doc over the line, there will be archival footage of many of the early particulars plus modern interviews with those in the current culture.

    Yes, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast let a lot of people go this week. The weakness of their position may be why Giant Freaking Robot has the exclusive about the deal. It’s a way to get funds for the struggling company fast.

    Additionally, on Plex and Freevee there are three recently new D&D shows. On D&D Adventures you can watch a Heroes Feast (D&D cooking), Faster Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! (D&D comedy where everyone dies) and Encounter Party (an edited actual play). The Free Ad-Supported Television channel also has the original D&D cartoon, DesiQuest and Rivals of Waterdeep.

  • Honor Among Thieves could get a sequel

    Honor Among Thieves could get a sequel

    While chatting about Wish, Chris Pine suggested that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves 2 is possibly/maybe going to happen. It wasn’t a strong statement, but it’s also the strongest since the co-writer/director duo were talking before the writers and actors strikes.

    “I’ve heard some rumors about it,” he tells us of a potential follow-up. “But I don’t know anything yet. But I feel pretty confident that it may happen.” When we ask if he’d be happy to return, Pine responds: “Absolutely.” 

    Gamesradar

    Now, I’m totally behind Gizmodo’s take — Make Dungeons & Dragons 2, you cowards.

    Why should Paramount and Hasbro remake this movie that fell short of its box office goals?

    • Because it wasn’t that short of the box office, and thanks to the shared nature of production costs the largest loss from either studio was $25 million.
    • Because a large part of that falling short was due to the compacted nature of releases that have meant a majority of films missed their targets this year. Releases are stacked up next to each other due to how the covid-19 pandemic reduced available theater openings for two years.
    • Because the marketing impact of the film for the game D&D meant that even when WotC released zero game products, the game division went up.
    • Because releasing more movies helps amplify interest in things like D&D: Adventures, the FAST Channel.
    • Because the TV shows ordered, TV in development (Kolstad) and the documentary would be boosted by the greater attention that major films still get over prestige television. There would be synchronicity, and unlike Marvel, Star Wars there isn’t yet danger of being overwhelmed with barely connected interoperable plots.
    • Because if they act quickly the main cast are available (a small benefit of the pauses due to the strikes). Pine has only 1 project (he’s said Star Trek IV v2 is dead). Rodriguez has 1 project, Regé-Jean Page has 1 project, Justice Smith has 4 projects. Sophia Lillis has 1 project. Chloe Coleman has 1 project. The cast that advocated for school D&D and grandparents D&D and just playing D&D in general is available now. That won’t be true for long.
    • Because Honor Among Thieves is still regularly one of the most popular films in the world. No, really. It’s top 5 on Paramount+ in the world this week and top 3 on P+ in the USA.

    That last point may be the most important. Long tails are rare in the current media environment. Many studios give up on “failures” rather than wait. The path to cancellation is quick. But Paramount and Hasbro haven’t given up on Dungeons & Dragons. It sits there on Paramount+ getting attention as one of the best found family films ever, a highly rated fantasy and it continues to help earn renewals at Paramount+ globally.

    So yes, I agree with Gizmodo on this point — released D&D 2, you cowards.