D&D Movie/TV Hasbro Getting Out Of The Movie Business

While Hasbro is forging ahead with its own Dungeons & Dragons video game, following the massive success of Baldur's Gate 3, the future of its film involvement is less rosy. In an article with Bloomberg featuring Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, it was revealed that the company won't be co-financing future movies following the underperformance of Honor Among Thieves and Transformers One.

The focus is moving towards video games. Cocks said to Bloomberg, "We want to reach fans where they want to play, and increasingly that is through digital expressions of their favorite brands".

Sony and Lions Gate will continue to make movies based on Hasbro properties, but Hasbro won't be involved in the financing.

Hasbro Confirms New Unannounced Dungeons & Dragons Video Game in Development

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has confirmed that an in-house studio is developing an unannounced Dungeons & Dragons video game. In a feature posted today on Bloomberg News, Cocks stated that Hasbro was actively developing a Dungeons & Dragons video game via one of its in-house studios. No further...

www.enworld.org

 

[CommodoreKong]

As per this Bloomberg article Hasbro has decided to get out of co-financing movies after their recent films underperformed:

Hasbro’s Gamer CEO Refocuses on Play After Selling Film Business

Hasbro Inc. Chief Executive Officer Chris Cocks couldn’t hide his disappointment when he opened two packs of his company’s Magic: The Gathering playing cards at a board-game cafė in New York.

www.bloomberg.com

Meanwhile, movies Hasbro co-financed, including the recent Transformers One and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, received critical praise but underperformed at the box office. Last year, the company sold off most of its film and TV business, and longtime rival Mattel Inc. passed the company in annual sales.
While studios such as Sony Group Corp. and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. will continue to make movies based on the company's products, Hasbro itself won't co-finance the films. It's part of a larger strategy to invest more in video and other games, which are popular with kids and adults, and have been taking a greater share of consumers' leisure time.
"We want to reach fans where they want to play, and increasingly that is through digital expressions of their favorite brands," Cocks said.

This means that if Paramount wants to make a sequel to Honor Among Thieves they’ll need to find all of the financing themselves instead of just half of it. Given the box office performance of the film this likely doesn’t bode well for a potential sequel. Truly unfortunate news as I would really love a sequel but given HoA’s underperforming I haven’t been holding my breath for a sequel.

 

[Scribe]

"We want to reach fans where they want to play, and increasingly that is through digital expressions of their favorite brands," Cocks said.

Uhh, its 2025 essentially, they are what, decades behind?

 

[abirdcall]

I thought it was very likely we would get a sequel until this news.

They want to grow their brand and well reviewed movies will do that. Looks like after the success of BG3 maybe they are thinking that money is better invested in video games.

 

[Bacon Bits]

This means that if Paramount wants to make a sequel to Honor Among Thieves they’ll need to find all of the financing themselves instead of just half of it. Given the box office performance of the film this likely doesn’t bode well for a potential sequel. Truly unfortunate news as I would really love a sequel but given HoA’s underperforming I haven’t been holding my breath for a sequel.

Sad. It's apparently done very well streaming, but it's hard to be a cult classic or home theatre hit in the modern era.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sad. It's apparently done very well streaming, but it's hard to be a cult classic or home theatre hit in the modern era.

Yup digital sales and rentals only bring in a fraction of the cash old VHS/DVDs used to.

 

[Smackpixi]

From a Hasbro perspective, good choice, movies super risky investment, and their brands not killing it.

From I love DnD perspective, I wasn’t expecting a second DnD movie. Turns out the brand didn’t unleash a blockbuster mega hit. It was a good movie, they put enough money into it, but it didn’t connect and and go huge like people here might have hoped. Oh well.

DnD brand really more suited to episodic series, would be nice to see a try at that and see if it connects with a wider audience better. I think modest budget, modest success much more likely DnD future than huge big swing wins.

 

[Deset Gled]

Sad. It's apparently done very well streaming, but it's hard to be a cult classic or home theatre hit in the modern era.

Paramount's smaller market share of streaming doesn't help, either. You can't help but wonder if this could have been considered a success by another media mogul corp (say, Amazon or AMC).

P. S. Why is this a voting thread?

 

[Stormonu]

Somewhat disappointing, Honor Among Thieves was good, and Transformers One crushed as a great movie. Sadly, even I've noticed that I don't go to the movie theater much any more (I actually dread the over-loud sound nowadays) and I'd rather just watch it from home - I don't know if Hollywood is making much off that from folks like me. Top it off with movie quality just seem to now start recovering from the 2020 slump and I can see it being very difficult to make money at the theater.

 

[wedgeski]

Same here. Not to sound like a bitter old man, but I relish the movie theatre experience of my youth. Today, my local chain cinema is expensive, dirty, noisy, stinks of nachos, and appears to want to randomly blow my ear drums out of my skull, depending on the film.