For the most part I'm so not a fan of having things pointed out or explained to me, but I did have one of these video slide-in behind the video I was playing in the background and I did learn something that I will not outright share because spoilers and whatnot.
The real question I did have though was, "Is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" successful? Of course this depends on your definition of success, but I'm thinking along the lines of....."Did it make enough money to warrant a sequel?"
I've read online that the movie "cost" $150M, which....IIRC, is roughly 50/50 production costs and advertising. According to Screen Dollars, the movie has made $37.2M in the opening weekend and $74M in the first two weeks (week three began on April 14th). Almost half of these sales are from overseas. Further reading online tells me, as much as these things can.....movie studios are known for doing weird math.....that for a studio to think a movie "profitable" it has to make 3x the production budget, so for the D&D movie that would be $225M.
Personally I think that this movie might kill it with DVD/Blu-Ray sales, but that's even more fuzzy math I can't even fathom. What would be a better indicator is the drop-off in sales between the opening weekend and the second. "Normal" is about 40%, but 60% is considered problematic. This movie went down 47%, so more than normal, but not terrible......
....which not be a bad thing. The Super Mario movie is decimating the box office right now and John Wick 4 is doing twice as well as the D&D movie. If you factor in all of the box office shuffling because of COVID (yes, it's still affecting the movies and will be for a while)...well the jury is still out.
Sorry.....I started this post before I started my research, so let's look at some "critical" reviews:
Metacritic gives it a 72 (Generally Favorable)
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 90% Tomatometer (Professional/Critical Reviews) and a 93% Audience Score
My gut says that the movie will probably be declared a success, but not make enough extra cash for Hasbro to pony up for an additional film in the franchise.
And how much of the blame for low box office might be the result of the WOTC/Hasbro shenanigans earlier this year?
ReplyDeleteThat is the $1M question....
DeleteI'd go see it tomorrow with my wife on my birthday but I'm half white and half Asian so they really don't want me as a customer. Half Lives Matter!
ReplyDeleteEverywhere else I've seen $150 million as the production budget, meaning it's not been doing well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons:_Honor_Among_Thieves
ReplyDelete"In the United States and Canada, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was released alongside A Thousand and One and His Only Son, and was projected to $30–40 million from 3,850 theaters in its opening weekend.[8][9] The film made $15.3 million on its first day, which included $5.6 million in advance screenings in the week leading up to its release, with $4.1 million coming from Thursday previews.[107] It went on to debut to $37.2 million, topping the box office; 61% of the opening weekend audience was male and 63% was between 18 and 34 years old.[108] The film made $14.5 million in its sophomore weekend (a drop of 61%), finishing in third.[109]
Delete"Outside of the US and Canada, the film grossed $33 million from 60 markets in its first weekend.[110] In its second weekend, Honor Among Thieves grossed $15.5 million, for a drop of 45%. As of April 9, 2023, the highest grossing territories were the United Kingdom and China ($9.4 million each), Mexico ($4.6 million), Australia ($4.2 million), and Germany ($4 million).[111]"
It seems to have grossed its production budget as of yesterday, but with advertising & theatre %s that's not great.
DeletePart of the issue is the numbers are obfuscated deliberately so I used one specific source that has worked for me in the past.
DeleteI thought it was good enough I'd pay for a sequel. But clearly the IP didn't put butts in seats like Wick or Mario.
ReplyDeleteThe TV show might help if it builds buzz and views could lead to a smaller budget sequel.
If a movie budget is known, that's almost always just for production. Then, you have to add that exact same amount to know the advertising budget. So, actual costs are double what studios say.
ReplyDeleteWhat I was pretty much going off of....
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