Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was one of those movies that not enough people saw to make a huge hit, but those who did see it generally liked it. Striking a delicate balance between humor and high fantasy, it never treated the world of magic and beasts like a joke, but found plenty of humor in character interactions. It even found the time to shout out to the ’80s cartoon series, with a background cameo from some familiar-looking costumed adventurers. Leaning into the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, it delivered actual dungeons, dragons, wizards, barbarians, mages, and even a gelatinous cube. Yet it couldn’t generate enough of a turnout to justify its large, $150 million budget.
The brand seems to have moved on from the movies for now, with a Netflix series planned called The Forgotten Realms, presumed (based on that name) to have a similar setting as the film, but not following the same characters. Having had some live-action medieval fantasy success with The Witcher, Netflix might not be a bad franchise home. What’s frustrating is that a script for an Honor Among Thieves sequel exists, and filmmakers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein still want to make it. And when it comes to D&D movies, it seems a better option for the brand than returning to the Marlon Wayans/direct-to-video era.
In a new interview with Empire, Daley and Goldstein reveal that D&D IP owner Hasbro is — still! — “very supportive of making that movie.” The toy company just can’t or won’t raise $150 million, or anything close to it, by themselves. The one thing holding them back is a financial partner; Paramount, presumably, is no longer interested. Goldstein added, “So if you have any billionaire nerd friends, send them our way.”
For what it’s worth, Jeff Bezos over at Amazon/Prime Video is the one who pre-greenlit multiple seasons of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and distributed a $170 million Masters of the Universe movie. If anyone in the movie distribution business is a fantasy nerd, even in the face of financial loss, he would be the guy to hit up.
While Masters of the Universe was a good movie deal for Mattel, at least, since it tripled their toy sales for He-Man and friends, Dungeons & Dragons didn’t exactly have a robust toy line, with only a handful of movie and cartoon-based figures on the pegs. Its biggest recent crossover success as a brand, outside of the core role-playing games, has been at Universal Fan Fest nights, as a walk-through maze theme. The theme park’s full-size, animatronic Beholder is a highlight, and any future live-action take would be crazy not to include that particular monster in some form.
Barring a Bezos miracle, though, the likelihood of getting the same A-list actors back together, with a remotely equivalent budget, seems like a pipe dream. The script may be great, but its best hope for ever seeing daylight is probably in adaptation as a comic book, which requires less investment, and can even draw the characters differently to avoid paying actor likeness rights. Not every franchise can be Tron, which rode its distinctive visuals to a big-budget trilogy despite lackluster business and reviews every time. That said, many fans would be happy to be proven wrong about this.
